


'Through a Mirror, Darkly'

by Katastrophe94



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Bad Dreams, Gen, Hell's Studio AU, Some angst, but ends on a good note, crossover of a sort, some creepy, some drama, this has grown beyond its ken
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 02:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11682462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katastrophe94/pseuds/Katastrophe94
Summary: Sometimes, we don't fully appreciate what we have until we see just how wrong something can go. In a disturbingly dark reflection of the world he knew, Bendy learns this first-hand.And unfortunately for them all, the water only deepens from there.





	1. The First Echo

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, finally, after many long hours of staring at this wondering if i should even post it, here ya go! A thing for the lovely doodledrawsthings and their splendid Hell's Studio au! - https://doodledrawsthings.tumblr.com/
> 
> And also this - http://ka-star.tumblr.com/post/163544196519/i-got-lazy-with-this-near-the-end-but-i-wanted-to
> 
> I can't keep away from any of these aus, it seems! Oh well!
> 
> Brought to YOU in Sillyvision!

          Every day at exactly six o’clock am, Bendy woke up from his slumber.

          Every day, like clockwork, as had been his routine for so many years now.

          Today was no different. One leisurely yawn and stretch, a comical cracking of a spine that may or may not be there, and the devil was up and ready to face whatever mayhem his studio had in store for the day.

          Except, as he threw off the covers and hopped out of his favorite drawer, he noticed that something was different.

          For one, the office space was a _mess_. Like, a genuine, atrocious mess that he _definitely_ did not recall leaving here the night before he went to sleep, with papers strewn all over the floor, chairs overturned, drawers pulled from their places, ink stains absolutely _everywhere_ , just a mass of disorder he never would have allowed had he been awake, and if this was someone’s idea of a prank, then that someone was _definitely_ getting fired. But as Bendy looked closer, he began to notice . . . other things. Disturbing things.

          Like how the floorboards and the walls were not just strewn with mess, but were also sunken in, rotten in some places, creaking every now and again with sullen and dank disrepair. How the only window was completely boarded up in haphazard array, nails still jutting out from the boards, so tightly packed together that only a faint, feeble ray of light was able to filter through, igniting air that was filled with dust and other refuse that shouldn’t be possible in a well-run establishment. How every picture frame, every piece of memorabilia, was coated in a layer of dust and grime so thick you could barely make it out for what it was. Or how there seemed to be no sound whatsoever save for a constant and pervasive _plink plink plink_ of liquid that seemed to come from everywhere, all the time.

          The unnerving sight immediately put Bendy on edge, a shiver travelling through his ink as he slowly rose up from his resting place.

          “What in blazes . . .?” he muttered, looking from one horrifically dilapidated object to the next, “I know Wally’s got a one track-mind sometime, but this is ridiculous . . .”

          It was like the lackadaisical janitor hadn’t been through in _years_. Bendy swallowed nervously, not quite liking the anxious chord that thought struck.

          He jumped at the sound of a door slamming shut nearby, and froze stock-still at the sound of running feet stomping by the room he was in. It wasn’t until it faded that it even occurred to him that that had definitely been a person, and he wanted to slap himself in the head for not calling out to them.

          If someone was here, then that meant this was some kinda set up, for sure. Someone who was definitely playin’ a joke on him, and lettin’ the studio pay the price for it.

He almost wanted to laugh a little in relief, wiping a hand over his brow to clean away the ink that had begun to dribble. Jeez, of course this was a set up! What else could this be?

          “A-alright, guys, if this some kinda joke, ya got me! Joey? Sammy!” Bendy called out, walking to the door. Out of habit, he reached up to flick the lights on, only to watch as the hanging fixture flickered erratically before sputtering out into darkness once more, a crack of static sparks flying out from the broken end.

          Bendy frowned, unamused, “ . . . okay, whoever’s responsible for this is gonna be payin outta their own pockets to fix this mess, ya hear me!”

          He pushed the door open, cringing at the old, rusty creak the hinges gave until it ground to a slow, faltering stop.

          The sight beyond made his heart sink.

          The hallways were in no better condition it seemed. Rotting floorboards, dust, the same black stains of ink everywhere, in some cases even flooding the floor, just one mess on top of the other. Whoever did this was lookin’ to lose their life savings, it seemed. Because someone had to have done this. Someone . . .

          Swallowing again, Bendy stepped out into the hall, looking back and forth for any sign of the person he had heard running. But there was only stillness. A stillness that did not match the vigor this studio was supposed to have, the energy of coffee-fueled animators and actors and music directors enthusiastically working toward their next deadline.

          And the silence made Bendy shudder.

          Creeping forward, this time more slowly and cautiously, Bendy turned and began to walk towards the rooms Boris and Alice slept in. They should be here still, they rarely left the studio at night, and he’d like a little back-up to get to the bottom of this nonsense.

          And to help make this place not feel so . . . abandoned.

          But as he walked, he realized that . . . this didn’t seem to be the studio he remembered working in just the day before. It looked similar, but . . . the layout was wrong. Older, less streamlined, without the renovations Joey had made so long ago. But there were still things he saw that didn’t make any sense. Like the pipes running every which way over the ceiling and the walls, _significantly_ more than his studio, all pumping in time to a heartbeat with thick, black ink that oozed like sludge between the metal bindings. And more disturbingly, posters of his old animations were lined along the walls, covered in dust, but still disturbingly visibly. None of the newer ones were up at all, like they should have been. It was like . . . like this place had somehow gotten stuck in the past, and hadn’t left it in literal years.

          “Boris?” Bendy said, voice dropping just a tad, yet unsure why he felt the need to _not_ shout, “Alice? Anybody?”

           Only creaking wood and dripping pipes answered him.

          Toons had no concept of hot or cold, yet Bendy found himself wrapping his arms around his torso like a sudden chill had come over him. Something wasn’t just ‘different’ anymore, it felt like. Something was _wrong_.

          Bendy turned a corner, only to nearly jump out of his skin when he came face to face with a cardboard cut-out of himself, the likes of which he hadn’t seen in years. He stared at it for a few moments, patting a hand over his heart before giving a wry chuckle to the hollow figure in front of him, “J-jeez, got me good there. Where’d ya even come from, huh?”

          It gave no response of course, just a plastic white grin that never changed, staring back ceaselessly with eyes that never blinked. Yeesh, now he remembered why they got rid of these things . . .

Giving the cold cut-out a wide berth, Bendy moved on until he came to the end of the path before him, said end splitting into a T-hallway that delved into further sections of this studio. He carefully looked down either one, not quite sure where he was now. The one on the right led to more twisting hallways, but the one on the left seemed to end in a room. A room without a door, the lights flickering on and off, on and off, one second bright and then the next drowned in dark, unseeable black.

          But there was a figure inside, Bendy could see whenever the lights flickered on. A tall figure, as grayscale as he was, with long, lupine ears that stood out, and Bendy felt his heart lift at the sight.

          “Boris!” he cried, running to the other toon, elated at finally finding a familiar face, even as the flickering lights bloomed into darkness again, “Boy, am I glad to see ya, pal! Can ya believe the state of this place?”

           More steps. The lights flickered on and off again in the span of a second, “Gonna have to have a few words with Wally about this mess, huh? If he wasn’t responsible for it, anyway!”

           Boris hadn’t responded yet. Bendy stepped over the threshold into the dark room, a little puzzled but hey, it was early in the morning and Boris had never been a morning dog, “Hey, Boris ol’ buddy, you still sleepin’ or-,”

           The lights flickered on, and there’s a moment of shocked silence as the scene in front of Bendy is revealed in incandescent clarity.

           And then he _screamed_.

           Boris, his pal Boris, one of his best and closest friends, is laying strewn across a table straight from a horror movie, wrists and ankles strapped down tight and head lolling to the side, and where his torso should have been was only a gaping hole that looked as if it had been viciously ripped into with surgical precision. His ribs are jutting from the cavity, shining white over disturbingly real monochrome innards that still gleam wetly in the light, eyes glassy and crossed with x’s, but it looked like they’d been cut into, and there’s no breath, there’s no life, Boris is _dead_ in front of him, and how did this happen _, how did this happen?!_

          Bendy stumbled back, tripping over his own feet and crashing to the floor, unable to tear his eyes away from the horrifically grisly scene in front of him. Ink was running from his brow in rivulets, and he wretched hard, gasping for air that won’t come as his stomach heaved and churned. His eyes are burning, and black droplets splatter across his hands and the floor, and it was all he could just to rise again, to get up and stumble into the hall, clutching at the wall, bent over and heaving into his hand.

 _This is a nightmare, it_ has _to be a nightmare, it_ has to be a nightmare _, oh god, oh god-_ his mind is racing, the image of what he had seen never leaving, turning tortuously inside his head, no matter how many times he tried to tell himself it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, _it wasn’t real-!_

          The lights sputtered out behind him, darkness pooling around his ankles, smothering the grisly scene from sight. They did not come back on again.

          He couldn’t bring himself to go back, either. Not in there, not with . . . _that_. So instead, hand still feebly gripping the wall for support, Bendy stumbled away, stomach roiling with nausea and chest heaving with poorly restrained sobs.

          He fought with himself to think rationally, furiously wiping at his face to restore some modicum of decency to himself. There was _no way_ that could have been Boris. No one . . . no one would ever hurt Boris, everyone liked him too much. It was . . .  a part of this prank. This cruel, mean-spirited prank that was no longer funny and he had half a mind to get Joey to call the cops on whoever was responsible for this. But _who_ would do this? Who? Not anyone from the studio, surely. Sure, pranks had happened before, but never to this scale and never so appallingly _malevolent_ in its set-up or execution. Someone else had to be responsible. A someone who was senselessly cruel, and didn’t seem to care about the trauma they caused. Just thinking about that, it made _anger_ bubble up inside.

        Still, he needed to find someone. He needed to find _anyone_ , because his nerves were shot and no matter how much he consoled himself with the idea that this was all still a cruel joke, the image of Boris strapped to a table with his insides ripped out _would not leave_.

        “At this point, I don’t get what Joey’s plan is for this company.”

        Bendy’s head snapped up, eyes widening when he heard the achingly familiar voice up ahead, hardly daring to hope, but _hoping_ nonetheless, “. . . Wally?”

        “So first, Joey installs this ink Machine over our heads. Then it begins to leak. Three times last month, we couldn’t even get out of our department because the ink had flooded the stairwell.”

        “Sammy?” Bendy tried again, picking up his pace, to where the voices were coming from.

        “It may only be my second month working for Joey Drew, but I can already tell I’m going to love it here!”

        “Susie . . .? Come on, you guys, answer me!” _Please answer me . . ._

         He came to another room, the door half-hanging off its hinges, into a space that was old, choked with dust and in disrepair, but familiar all the same. The music room. The room where people sang and instruments played, never a dull moment to be had. Alice’s and Susie’s and Sammy’s and Norman’s department.

         And it looks similar. The old projector in the overhead booth, the chairs arranged in neat rows, the conductor’s stand, the instruments laying here and there . . . but Bendy found his steps faltering. Because no one was _inside_ the room. No one except the old, whirring cassette players laid out in every chair, where the voices of his friends and coworkers repeated phrases ad nauseum. Words that made no sense to him.

        “Every day the same strange thing happens, I’ll be up here in my booth, the band will be swingin’, and suddenly Sammy Lawrence just comes marching in and shuts the whole thing down!” Norman.

        “. . . I can’t find my stupid keys. It’s like they vanished into thin air or something!” Wally.

         “Alice and I, we are going places!” Susie.

         “What is going on?” Bendy whispered, creeping forward to the canned apparitions that had played on his hopes, feeling both crushed and deeply unsettled. He knew these people. They’d never have been a part of this hoax, right?

         He took another step forward, the floor creaking beneath his foot, and right then, ever single cassette player present _stopped_.

         Bendy froze, feeling another uneasy shiver run down his spine as the silence rolled heavily over him. He became so deeply aware of how _quiet_ the room suddenly was, descending like an oppressive shroud over the usually lively music room.

         He glanced around, feeling leagues more unsafe than he had before, when there’s a soft _click_ , and a lonely cassette player half hidden in the shadows began to play its message.

         “He appears from the shadows to rain his sweet blessings upon me. The figure of ink that shines in the darkness. I see you, my savior. I pray you hear me.”

          Bendy stared, “. . . Sammy?”

          “Those old songs, yes, I still sing them. For I know you are coming to save me. And I will be swept into your final loving embrace.”

          No . . . no, Sammy would never talk like this. Never. It was so upsettingly unlike the ornery music director he knew that Bendy could believe some faker with a similar voice had made a recording just to freak him out. Hell, it may even be the guy responsible for this mess!

          “But love requires sacrifice,” the cassette player droned on in that disturbingly reverent tone, “Can I get an amen?”

 _Click._ The player fell silent.

           But words still played, _right behind him_ , “I said, can I get an _amen?_ ”

           Bendy spun around, stumbling back into the chairs when he saw the figure behind him, looming over the toon like a dark and malicious specter. At first, Bendy thought it was a human. Until he saw the ink running from their body in place of flesh, a sight he had seen before, had hoped he would never see again. And where their face should have been, Bendy’s own cut-out mask had been affixed, grinning down at him in a cold mockery of joy.

          “W-who-?”

          “My Lord,” the person said in quiet veneration, and Bendy felt another shiver as he recognized Sammy’s voice. But no, this _couldn’t_ be Sammy, Sammy would _never_ call him that!

          “I have awaited this day for so long, My Lord. To be graced by your presence is . . . most enlightening. Most _wonderful!_ ”

           The man with Sammy’s voice moved closer to him, reaching out with an ink-stained hand, and Bendy backed away, snapping, “H-hey, back off ya nut! I dunno who you think ya are, but I ain’t no ‘lord’!”

           The man was not deterred, moving closer and closer, “My Lord, I knew you would hear this humble sheep’s prayers. I have spread your gospel most faithfully, I have preached your unholy name to all who would hear! And now, you have come to deliver me!”

           “I said back off!” Bendy yelled, grabbing at the nearest thing he could find and brandishing it as a weapon. A banjo.

           The man paused then, but if Bendy had hoped it was in fear, he was soon disappointed, for the strange loon suddenly dropped to his knees, spreading himself prostrate across the floor at the toon’s feet, “My Lord, free me from this prison of my own body! I beg you, Ink Demon, grace me with your mercy!”

           Ink had begun to run down his brow again, and Bendy didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t a fighter, and this guy was a few cards short of a deck, so who knows what would set him off. But on top of everything else he had seen, all of _this_ was making his stomach twist in knots.

            “I-I . . . I ain’t-!”

            Something cold and slimy gripped his ankle, and Bendy’s eye shot to the floor behind him. Only to balk in utter horror at the sight of a ghoulish black face that stared back up at him with hollow, empty eyes, body an amalgamated mass of ink that oozed between the cracks in the floor, its viscous hand clutching desperately at his ankle.

           Nearby, a cassette player whirred to life, and the distorted voice of Norman Polk gurgled through the static, _“Save us, My Lord. Save us, please.”_

           Another hand grabbed at his elbow as another of those creatures rose from the ground, keening as if in great pain. Another click, another broken voice, another echo in the form of Wally Franks, _“Have mercy on us, My Lord! Have mercy!”_

           A third rose in front of him, choking on a sobbing cry, pitched with despair as Susie Campbell wailed at him through the speakers, _“Don’t abandon us again! Please help us, My Lord!”_

           Wailing, screaming, pleading, begging, pulling at his clothes, his arms, his legs, pulling him _under_ with the weight of their misery, and in that moment, there’s a flash of very sudden, very painful clarity for Bendy;

           This. Was not. A joke.

 _Jokes_ didn’t summon apparitions out of nothing. _Jokes_ didn’t turn his friends into monsters. _Jokes_ didn’t make horrors like this so viscerally alive. And if it wasn’t a joke . . . then what was left except for it to be real?

          A pair of cold, cold hands grasped his face, forcing his horrified gaze up to stare into a hollow mask with cutout eyes and a stained grin, and Sammy Lawrence breathed solemnly into his face, a reverent and pleading whisper that somehow eclipsed all other sound in the room,

          “Save us.”

          It’s a snap decision on Bendy’s part, fueled by the jolt of pure terror that suddenly electrifies his core, zapping life into his petrified limbs, and with a cry, Bendy swung his arm around and clocked the masked man square in the face with the flat side of the banjo. There’s a loud, strident _ping_ as the strings snap and Lawrence is set sprawling from the blow, just as the hands around him suddenly vanish, the monsters spreading apart like a flock of startled birds. Bendy waited on nothing. As soon as he’s free, he was _running._

          The chilling wails of the ink creatures chase after his heels, and the sound cemented the reality around him that this was _real_ , this was _happening,_ this wasn’t just a joke anymore! And that’s more horrifying than anything, even as he blitzed around corner after corner, running so fast the world around him was a blur, and mind racing no less quickly.

         What had happened? What had _happened?_

         But there is no answer here. No reason for why his coworkers are suddenly monsters, why the studio is in the state it’s in, why Boris is . . . oh god, _Boris-!_

         He slid on his feet to a stop, bracing a shoulder against the wall and sucking in lungfuls of air until the hammering of his heart stopped. But even as it slowed, the hiccup that worked its way up could not be stopped, just like the whimper that followed it.

         He’s trembling, and it’s from more than just exhaustion. Because now, he thinks he’s in very real danger. Because now, he’s very genuinely _afraid_.

        “Joey . . .?” he called out, as if the mere act would somehow magic the man into existence, would bring him here and make it seem not so impossibly bad. But no one came. No one . . .

         Was he really all alone here?

         The thought was enough to nearly send his already frazzled mind into another panic, because he’s at a very genuine and terrifying loss for what to do. There were monsters crawling around, there was a madman who had Sammy’s voice chasing him, Joey was nowhere to be found, and Boris was . . . Boris was . . .

         He choked, feeling his stomach flip, and the the room seemed to spin on itself. He bent forward again, fighting back the urge to vomit, but feeling tears burn anew in his eyes. If this was real . . . oh _god_ . . .

_Thud thud thud!_

         Footsteps. Loud, heavy ones, ones that were barreling closer with every passing second. Bendy was on his feet immediately, adrenaline surging, half-afraid that that demented Sammy is following him. But he’s still too tired to run, so instead, he gripped the banjo he had closer and held it up at the ready.

         Closer. Bendy’s fingers tightened, creeping closer to the edge where the two hallways met.

         Closer still, right around the corner. His shoulders bunched in preparation to swing.

         A figure bolted around the corner, stained dark with ink, and Bendy didn’t hesitate. With one swing, the underside of his improvised weapon smacked hard into the underside of the other’s chin, and the figure went down hard.

         Panting, Bendy backed away, just about to bolt to safety, when the figure groaned.

         It’s another familiar voice. A very cared for and trusted voice. And when he looked closer, Bendy saw that the ink on their body wasn’t oozing from their skin, because they _had_ skin. Normal, human skin! And darker hair, streaked with grey, clothes suited to their broad body, and Bendy can hardly believe it, but the joy that radiated through him when he saw their face made him dizzy with relief.

         “Henry!”

         The man groaned again, and Bendy felt a flash of guilt at the sight of the man’s already bruising chin. Yikes, that . . . that was gonna leave a mark.

         “H-hey, sorry Henry, I thought . . . I thought you were one of those things . . .” Bendy said, and he was genuinely apologetic as he came to the animator’s side, “No hard feelings, yeah?”

         He reached down to help the old man up, bracing his hand against the other’s shoulder to act as leverage. But at the feel of hands on him, Henry started upright, faster than Bendy had ever seen him move before, and the man’s face snapped to him.

         Dark eyes met his own, and Bendy smiled, that same relief spilling over onto his face, so strong it made tears bead at the corners of his eyes.

         It lasts for only a moment, because that’s when a strong hand suddenly slammed into his chest and sent him sprawling to the floor, banjo flying off to the side and leaving him winded. Wincing, Bendy used his arms to push himself up, eyes searching for Henry, confused and lost.

         He’s not sure if he felt better when he found him, because the old man is glaring at him from where he stood, brandishing an axe his way, its silver edge streaked with black.

         “H-Henry . . .?” Bendy started, shocked, alarmed, not understanding why the person he trusted most aside from Joey himself was looking at him with such cold, angry eyes, why did he look so _angry_ at him?

         “Stay away from me,” the man growled, and it’s so sharp and unfriendly that it left Bendy nearly speechless.

         “W-wha . . . H-Henry, i-its _me!_ ” Bendy tried again, but a paranoid fear was starting to sink in, making the ink run down his face again as he slowly clambered to his feet, “Y-ya know me, right?”

         “Hard to forget the guy who’s trying to kill me,” was Henry’s curt and cutting response, never once lowering the axe even a fraction. It was like . . . like the man didn’t even know who he was.

         That realization cut deeper than any axe blade could, it seemed, and Bendy stared at him in desperation, “What? N-no, no, I’d never do somethin’ like that! Henry, please, tell me ya remember me! The _real_ me! Ya _know_ I wouldn’t do that!”

          Henry’s eyes narrowed, disbelieving. But the axe blade dropped just the tiniest inch, “Hm . . . and how would I know that? Everything else in this place has tried to kill me.”

          Bendy’s eyes widened, and he took a slow step forward, “C-come on, don’t pull a guy over like that. Please, we . . . we worked together! For _years!_ Ya can’t-ya can’t tell me that ya don’t remember!”

          Even as he said it, Bendy searched for any trace of recognition in the man’s face, any sign that Henry had just bumped his head and needed a little speech to get the memory juices flowing again . . . but the only thing he sees is that same wary distrust, that mark of a man who no longer believed in the face-value of things, no matter how honest it might be. It’s so . . . _wrong_. Just like everything else in this horrible place is.

          And Henry was already backing away from him, “Sorry, but I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

          “H-hey, no, wait! Please, just, hold on a sec, okay?” Bendy pleaded, a sudden rush of fear percolating through his ink at the thought of being abandoned, “I . . . I don’t know what’s going on, alright? B-but I swear, I’m on your side!”

          Henry stared at him, and while he’s still wary, Bendy can tell he’s at least _listening_ , “Really? You don’t know what’s happening?”

          “No. I mean, yesterday, everythin’ was normal, and then all of a sudden, here I am, and everythin’s just been turned on its head! Those things, Sammy, and _Boris_ -,” he unintentionally chokes on the last word, feeling sick all over again.

          But something must come through, or Henry must see something on his face, because the furrow in his brow softened just slightly, and the axe dropped just another inch, “. . . Look, I . . . I don’t know if I can trust you. There’s just . . . too much going on.”

          “Then let me prove it!” Bendy pleaded. He doesn’t know who _this_ Henry is, it had become increasingly and upsettingly obvious . . . but it was still _Henry_.  There had to be something there that was like the kind, reasonable animator Bendy knew and loved. Something, because if there hadn’t been, then the man would have used that axe a long time ago.

          Henry stared at him, and in that instant, he looked so much older than Bendy can ever remember, seeing for the first time how haggard and exhausted he is, shoulders dropping and eyes ringed by dark, heavy bags. How long had he been stuck here . . . ?

          “I-,” whatever the old man would have said, Bendy didn’t get to hear it, because then, a symphony of discordant, gurgling growls resounded down the halls, growls that were steadily getting closer.

          Henry’s gaze snapped behind him, cursing, “Shit!”

          The animator looked back at Bendy, and the toon returned it, just as alarmed but unsure as to what this Henry would do. The old man glanced back at the hallway, looking torn, before finally shaking his head and saying, “Ugh, I’m gonna regret this.”

          Before Bendy could question what he was talking about, the old man was suddenly running in his direction, switching his axe to his other hand and using the free one to grab at the toon’s shoulder, shouting, “ _Run!_ ”

          He didn’t need to be told twice, especially not as he saw the first deformed head of an ink creature slide around the corner. Still, as he turns heel and starts sprinting, he can’t stop the flutter of relief he felt inside that Henry wasn’t going to abandon him.

          The pipes running beside them gurgled, the metal rungs creaking as they ran. Behind them, it sounded like more of those things were gathering, giving chase, screaming all the while. He didn’t know if Henry heard the same things he heard, though; the pleas for salvation, the cries for mercy . . .

          He almost stopped when they rounded a corner and came to a room that was flooded with ink, the rippling black liquid lapping across the ground in waves. Beyond, he could see another door exiting into an adjoining hallway, but to get there, they had to enter the murk.

          Henry only grimaced once before throwing himself to it, the ebony liquid coming up to his thighs before settling, “Come on!”

          Bendy wasn’t keen, but in light of the very real danger behind him, he sucked in a breath and went for it. It felt like forever before the ink finally stopped rising, coming up to his chest, and he was practically swimming after the older man.

          There’s a growl, and Bendy’s eyes snap to the door behind them. One of those things perched there, watching with hollow eyes . . . but it did not leave its spot. All it did was watch. And in a matter of moments, others joined it, clambering at the entryway, hissing and gurgling, but never crossing over.

          “Hey, it ain’t followin’ us!” Bendy said, wary, but a little relieved.

          Henry did not feel the same way, face paling, “That’s not good!”

          Before Bendy can ask why, the ink in front of the older man bubbled.

          There’s a startled shout, and suddenly, Henry vanished beneath the ink, dragged below by something he couldn’t see.

          “ _Henry!_ ” Bendy shouted, sloughing to where the man had been, pawing desperately at surface, searching, he’s gotta be somewhere, he’s _gotta_ be somewhere! “Hen-!”

          The ink in front of him rose, a figure emerging from its depths. But it’s _not Henry_.

          It’s impossibly tall, looming over the toon and drowning him in its shadow. Its flesh is made of ink, its limbs are unnaturally long and lanky, and Bendy swallowed at the sight of hands tipped by wickedly sharp, sable claws.

          But that’s not the thing that leaves him speechless. That’s not the thing that leaves him terrified.

          Because the face that leered at him from on high, a face twisted by a crooked grin lined with malice, is familiar to him too.

          Familiar because its _him_.

          Before he can react, do _anything_ , a hand suddenly grabbed him by the throat, lifting him up from the dark swells below and bringing him practically nose to nose with the eyeless abomination. Bendy coughed, grabbed at the hand holding him and tried to pry the cold, sharp fingers away, but they don’t give an inch. Instead, they only _tighten_ , squeezing his air away and leaving him choking for it, and the thing’s smile seemed to widen.

          And then it spoke. It spoke like _him_.

          “Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the mirror today,” it leaned in closer, and it’s grin is full of dark and vile mirth, even as it brought a clawed hand up and ready to strike, “ ** _Didn’t ya pal?_** ”

          Then it’s claws came down, and Bendy couldn’t even scream.

          -

          When Bendy woke, it was with a wild cry, throwing himself forward and swinging his fists in an attempt to beat off the thing using his voice.

          But hands grab his own, smaller hands, softer hands, hands that were not the claws that had held him before, and a slightly panicked but _familiar_ voice starts speaking, softly, soothingly, “Bendy, Bendy, it’s okay! Everything’s fine!”

          For a moment, everything is blurry, vague shapes and distorted colors, but he zeroes in on the one who had spoken, and as he focuses, he made out the long, ebony hair and halo of a very familiar person.

          He hardly dared to hope, “ . . . Alice?”

          But the angel was nodding, banishing the shadows that obscured her face, lips breaking into a relieved smile, “Yes! Yes, it’s me! See? Everything’s alright!”

          Another hand appeared on his shoulder, larger and heavier than hers, but when he turned to look, the face he saw then was what made everything truly snap into focus.

          “You feelin’ alright, buddy?” Boris asked him, and the sound filled Bendy with so much relief, so much _joy_ , because Boris was here, he wasn’t dead, he was _alive-!_

          He doesn’t even really register what he’s doing, but he can’t really bring himself to care as he threw his arms around the wolf’s neck, squeezing like he could vanish at any moment and trying very hard to keep his himself from crying like a baby.

          Boris grunted slightly at the sudden, unexpected contact, but he doesn’t push Bendy away. Instead, he comfortingly patted his back, saying reassuringly, “Hey, it’s okay, buddy. Everything’s okay.”

          He doesn’t pry himself away immediately, instead focusing on how the wolf’s chest is rising and falling like it should, savoring the sound of life that’s there. But as he listened, and as he finally relaxed, he became increasingly aware of the almost overpowering smell of flowers and wood smoke. _Lots_ of wood smoke.

          Coughing slightly, he pulled back, wiping at his face hurriedly to hide any sign of tears. But he kept a hand on Boris’ arm, reluctant to let go completely.

          That’s when another voice spoke up, “Boss? You alright?”

          He glanced up, and his heart lurched in relief when he saw Henry crouch down beside them. Henry, who’s eyes are warm and concerned, not angry, not afraid, _his_ Henry.

          It occurred to him then that now . . . now he was in reality. This was _real_. And while his head is still tangled with the memories of moments ago, he’s awake and aware enough now to realize that . . . it had just been a dream. A bad, bad dream.

          It’s enough to make a toon sag in on himself with relief.

          “U-uh . . .” he shook his head, and the motion helped clear his thoughts, “I . . . think so?”

          “Are you sure?” Alice probed, and while ordinarily he’d be annoyed, he can’t quite bring himself to feel that way yet.

          Then, a more chipper voice chimed in, “Well, there don’t seem to be any side effects! Thank goodness, I was afraid the incense may have been too much!”

          Bendy looked up, beyond the three around him, and smiled when he saw none other than Joey Drew standing a little ways off. There’s an incense stick in one hand and one of his . . . tomes in the other, but while he’s smiling as he was wont to, there’s an edge of relief to it. When Bendy saw him, the man smiled, “Hello, my devil. Glad to see you up again.”

          “Uh . . . me too?” he said, not quite sure how to respond to that, but glad he is up regardless. He coughed again, that same smell teasing his nostrils, and its only then he realized that the room around, while as he remembered it to be (clean and ordered and _right_ ), there are . . . a lot of candles and incense sticks around. Its enough to tease out his natural curiosity, “What uh . . . what happened?”

          At that, Henry rolled his eyes, “Joey got it in his head to experiment with lucid dreaming. But the ‘Joey’ way.”

          “Well, it was fascinating to me!” Joey defended, but he did look a touch more mollified than usual, “I thought just a tiny touch of magic would make it more sensible, easy to translate in the waking world! But, erm, I may have misread a few lines and directed the spell to . . . someone else.”

          The animator and his two toon friends all gave Joey a look he had seen the man be given _many_ times before.

          But Bendy could only feel relief, “A dream, huh? It was just a dream?”

          But what else could it have been? As scary as it had been, none of that stuff could have happened, _really_ happened. But it was so nice to hear someone else say it.

          He noticed the look the four of them shared, touched with concern, with worry . . . and with a flush of quiet embarrassment, Bendy held up his hands, “I-uh, I mean of course it was a dream! No way it was real!”

Unfortunately, not everyone looked completely convinced of his words, but good ol’ Henry ( _his_ Henry), ever the one to understand when he really did not want to talk about something, reached out and patted a consoling hand against the toon’s shoulder, nodding, “Yeah. Just a dream.”

          “But . . .” Alice started softly, “If you still want to talk about it . . .”

          Bendy immediately shook his head. No, he never wanted to think about it again, “No.”

          He sounded a little too hard then, so he tried to lighten his tone, “I mean, it was just a dream, yeah? Nothin’ real! So, no point in talkin’ about it.”

          Alice still doesn’t look convinced, but Henry gently drew her attention, “Hey, why don’t you go let the others know he’s awake?”

          The angel looked at him for a moment, then nodded. She still gave Bendy one last worrying glance however, even as she left.

          The others . . . Susie, Sammy, everyone.

          _(-screaming for salvation, pleading for mercy, praying for an end-)_

          Bendy sharply slapped a hand to his head, jarring his thoughts to a stop. No, it was just a dream. His coworkers were fine. Everyone was _fine._

          “Everyone’s still here?” he asked, glancing at the two humans in the room and quietly searching for a distraction.

          Setting his incense stick aside, Joey came over then, kneeling down to be more level with the toon, “Well, it _is_ the middle of the day. Prime work hours for all!”

          “The _middle_ of the _day?!_ ” Bendy started, eyes widening. No, it could not have been that long! “How long was I asleep?!”

          Henry, Joey, and Boris all gave each other a _look_ , very suspiciously looking like they were avoiding the toon’s gaze. Which wasn’t a good sign.

          “Not . . . _too_ long,” Joey said, shrugging, “A day, at the most. But-!”

          “A _day!_ ” Bendy shouted, “I’ve been asleep an _entire day!_ ”

          Boris reassuringly patted his hand, “It ain’t so bad, Bendy. Everyone made sure to do their part to keep everythin’ runnin’ smooth! You were just, uh . . .”

          “Indisposed,” Henry finished neatly, though it did little to calm Bendy down. Ugh, he was going to have to sort through so much stuff just to make sure nothing had been derailed!

          “Nothing a little magic and smoke didn’t fix!” Joey said, swinging an arm around in victory. But it suddenly and swiftly dropped away, and a more contrite look crossed the older man’s face, a look that very, very rarely ever made an appearance, “Everything else aside, though . . . _are_ you feeling alright, Bendy? Unintended recipient or not, it looked like the dream was . . . quite the lucid one.”

          Privately . . . no, not quite. It was going to take a little time for him to get over it completely, to separate that nightmarish reality from the forefront of his mind to some background slot rarely visited. But Joey looked unusually apologetic, Henry still had that crease in his brow, Boris’ ears were low, and who knows what the rest of the staff were going to say.

          Besides, he wanted to get to work, and if he waxed dramatic on how awful some silly nightmare had been, then they’d never let him get back to it in a timely manner. Work was good.

          “Hey, it was just a dream,” Bendy told them, shrugging, “Nothin’ a bit of colored ink won’t fix, right?”

          “Well,” Joey pursed his lips, glancing at the tome in his hand, “The full translation was ‘window to a second world’, but it made it sound like-oof!”

          Henry dropped a heavy hand on the other’s shoulder, and Bendy may or may not have imagined the older man squeezing said shoulder a little more firmly than needed, “Yeah, just a dream. But if you need some time off . . .”

          “No, I have already taken too much time off!” Bendy said resolutely. He clambered out of his drawer (gosh, how long had he been in there?), quite eager to not be in bed anymore, saying, “So uh, anyone mind fillin’ me in on what I missed?”

          It’s a diversion, and he knows they all know it, but thankfully they oblige him. And thankfully after that, things become a little more normal.

          But if he spent a little more time watching his coworkers than before, no one called him out on it.

          If he checked up on Boris a little more than usual, the wolf took it good-naturedly.

          If he stayed up a little later working alongside Henry, the old man smiled understandingly.

          If he played piano with Joey a little more than usual, his creator would happily play along.

          Just until what he had experienced all became what he tried to tell himself it was since waking; that it was just a bad dream.


	2. Sent From Below

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, magic leaves an echo even after it's been cast. And sometimes, echos can carry someone far into places they'd really rather not be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it again, guys.
> 
> Except now its Alice who gets to suffer because of me. Enjoy.
> 
> Also, chapter three spoilers a-hoy! You've been warned!

          Alice’s steps were light and merry that day. Of course, how else was she to act after the successful release and reception of an episode starring her own self and Susie’s excellent voice?

          ‘Alice Angel in The Angel’s Choir’. A much looked forward to day in the limelight, and one that had even gained some wonderful traction. Aaaand, while she certainly would deny it, it was quite fun rubbing it in Bendy’s face. Now that he was, well . . . she guessed the most appropriate description was ‘feeling better’, even though he would never admit something was wrong. Oh sure, deadline stress and the like, but ever since Joey’s . . . ‘idea’ had backfired, the toon demon had been acting a little . . . strange. And while Bendy liked to think he was as subtle as he was suave, the truth was he wasn’t and everyone had noticed. But he certainly made up for that lack of subtlety with sheer stubbornness, because he hadn’t gone to anyone about it. Not even Henry.

          Which did trouble her, even though she knew openly saying it would only be met with a hand wave. Whatever dreams he’d had under that spell, they must have been . . . well, let’s just say the screams had been telling. She would have chewed Joey out over it privately, creator or not, but if how he’d looked throughout the ordeal was anything to go by, she’d say the man had learned his lesson tenfold. In fact, no occult shenanigans had happened in some time, much to everyone’s relieved sanity. Especially Henry and Sammy.

          Which was why it did her good to see Bendy improving, and settling everything back into true normalcy. This last deadline, while stressful, seemed to be just what the devil needed. And while she would certainly glow under this episode’s success, she looked forward to things going back to how they should be and forgetting about the upset that had rocked the studio for a time.

          The sound of approaching voices drew Alice’s attention back to the entrance hall, just in time to see Susie and Sammy round the corner. The woman had been wearing the biggest smile all day, and while her hair was a little grayer and the lines on her face a little more prominent these days, today’s success made her look ten years younger.

          “-and we’re all going out for drinks to celebrate, whether you like it or not. And you’ll like it, because you always do!” Susie said chipperly, one arm locked around the music director’s elbow and hauling him along behind her.

          Sammy was only putting up a token resistance, even if his face was sent into that permanent scowl of his. Sometimes Alice wondered if there was some law somewhere that stated Sammy wasn’t allowed to smile, or else the consequences would be dire, “Since when do I ever have a choice?”

          Before the two vanished out the door, most likely headed to the wrap party the others had planned, Alice held up a hand and called out, “Have fun you two!”

          Susie all but spun on her heel, face lighting up into an even bigger smile, “Alice! We were just about to leave! Why don’t you throw on one of those cute disguises and come with us? Boris and Bendy can come too!”

          Sammy side-eyed the woman, _perhaps_ even slightly pleading, but Alice just laughed, “While I appreciate the idea, I think I’ll just pour myself a nice glass of yellow ink here.”

          Susie looked a little disappointed, but understanding all the same, “Right. It was just the end not that long ago. Well, I hope the three of you celebrate with us in spirit!”

          Alice smiled, “Always!”

          Susie’s open hand in front of her face had her blinking for a moment, then smile in fond appreciation before holding up her own and clapping it against the woman’s in familiar rapport. It had been their Thing to do ever since their first successful release starring them, and every release after that. True, Alice Angel was a familiar mainstay on the cast now, forever and always, but every time felt no less magical.

          Susie winked, “See you later Alice! And sometime soon, we’re going out to celebrate somewhere, just us girls!” a slightly more teasing smile crossed her lips, “And maybe Sammy, if he behaves himself.”

          Sammy, who’d only been half-listening at that point, suddenly snapped to attention, “What?”

          But Susie didn’t repeat what she said. Instead, with an amused chuckle, she waved at Alice and began to haul him back to the door, “Goodnight Alice!”

          “Goodnight Susie! Goodnight Sammy!” Alice returned in kind, waving until the two were out the door and out of sight.

          There’s a brief moment of silence, when another voice called out behind her, “Oh, there ya are, Alice! I was just lookin’ for you!”

          The angel turned around, smiling at the figure behind her, “Boris!”

          “Was that Sammy and Susie who just left?” the ever-friendly wolf asked, paws in his pockets and eyes glancing to the door.

          She nodded in reply, “Mhm. Just went to that bar everyone likes to go to after a release. Speaking of which, I promised Susie I’d open a bottle with them in spirit! Care to join me?”

          “Sure!” Boris said, ears perking up, “Lemme go find Bendy! It’s not a celebration without him!”

          Alice hummed in thought, trailing after the wolf with a hand to her chin, “Hm, speaking of that devil, where is he? I haven’t seen him all evening.”

          “Talkin’ with Joey and Henry about somethin’ in his office,” Boris replied, looking unperturbed.

          Alice, however, felt a tiny prickle of unease, “About . . . what? Do you know?”

          Boris glanced at her, and the uncertain gleam in his eyes was answer enough even as he shrugged, “Uh, no. Figured they wouldn’t want anyone pryin’, ya know?”

          Well, it was the recent end of a deadline and a fresh release . . . most likely, they were just doing a little preliminary planning for the next. Workaholics, and all that.

          Unfortunately, eavesdropping wasn’t possible, because by the time they made it to Bendy’s office, both the demon and the two animators were out and bidding each other goodnight. But everything looked normal, so maybe she was just being paranoid.

          Bendy noticed them first, “Oh, hey guys.”

          Boris and Alice waved back, with Boris offering a chipper, “Hi, Bendy!”

          “Oh, hello, you two! Good to catch you on our way out!” Joey said, looking happy. But he usually looked that way.

          “Are you both going to that party Susie and everyone went to?” Alice asked, curious.

          Henry smiled, but it was a little strained, holding up a hand and tilting it left and right, “Eeh, maybe for a little bit. But I’m not as young as I used to be.”

          “Oh, only if you let yourself feel that way, Henry!” Joey butt in, slapping a hand against Henry’s shoulder.

          The other man was still for a second, before very slowly bringing his own hand up and rubbing the spot Joey had hit, “Ow . . .”

          “Heh, well, you two have fun with that,” Bendy commented, grinning, “Meanwhile, I’m gonna go open up a few bottles myself.”

          “Celebrating my victory,” Alice added in cheekily.

          Bendy just waved a hand at her, and she was pleased to see that it was no less than she would expect from him after a comment like that, “Yeah, yeah, you’ve been tellin’ everyone all day, congratulations. _But_ , I’m the one still in the lead!”

          Alice grinned, “But _I’m_ catching up.”

          Both Henry and Joey chuckled at that, much to Bendy’s chagrin, and Henry said, “Well, just don’t burn down the building before any of us get back.”

          “That’d be troublesome, even for me!” Joey added.

          Alice clapped her hands together, smiling as her halo glowed just a little brighter for added effect, “Oh, don’t you worry about little old me! I’ll behave myself~.”

          “Says the gal with a halo _and_ a pair of horns,” Bendy commented, arms crossed. There was a beat of silence, and then a soft _ping_ as Alice’s halo connected with the middle of the devil’s forehead, bouncing up and away with a musical ring as Bendy reeled back, “ _Gak!_ ”

          The others laughed, and it wasn’t much longer before the two humans bid them all goodnight to make their way to the party where chaos had undoubtedly ensued in their absence. And, for her part, she certainly did make good on her promise of pouring a drink and celebrating with them in spirit. Or two drinks. Or three. Enough that by the time she hung up her halo for the night and bunkered down beneath her soft, warm blankets, she was well on her way to a happy slumber.

          At least, until a wonderfully loud _thud_ outside her door had her bolting upright in her bed.

          She sat stock still for several moments, blankets drawn up to her chin and hair a comical fritz as she listened for any more disturbances. Then, with an irritated huff, she grabbed her halo and gave it a sharp shake until the light returned to it. Once done, she set it on her head and threw the covers aside, eyes narrowed in annoyance, “Really, Ben? I would have thought after the first boobytrap you would have learned those tricks don’t work on me anymore!”

          Really. And he liked to call himself original.

          With another huff, she flung the door open and stepped into the hall, eager to give the devil himself what-for . . .

          Only to find air where her foot landed, and proceeded to plummet into a pool of something dark, wet, and very, very cold.

          She flailed her arms in panic before her head burst through the surface again, coughing and sputtering, her halo’s light briefly obscured beneath the substance she’d landed in. Spitting, Alice could perceive the familiar taste of ink, but . . . it tasted wrong. Off and old and . . . tainted.

          She managed to find the floor beneath the pool, finally managing to stand upright so only her waist and legs were submerged. And, as the liquid dribbled from her halo and the light returned, she could see that it was ink she had landed in, albeit in vast more quantities than she’d first thought. The entire hall, as far as she could see, was _flooded_ with the stuff.

          “What the . . .?” Alice murmured, looking around, “Did a pipe burst again?”

          That seemed to be the case. Flooding had happened before, once to the degree where Sammy and several others had been trapped in their department for hours. The music director had not been in a good mood for a while after that.

          _Well, at least he’s not here for this . . ._ she thought. Although, looking at the ruined state of her pajamas, she felt no less miffed that she’d been the one to suffer the brunt of this latest breakdown. These had been a gift from Susie . . .

          Sighing, she squeezed out her hair and began to wade through the mess, calling, “Bendy! Boris! Ink alert! We’ve got another flood!”

          No answer. Of course. Boris was one of the deepest sleepers she knew, and Bendy, when he finally decided to entertain the notion of sleep, could snooze pretty deeply too. But at least he was sleeping.

          “Hey, come on you guys, we need to call someone before this gets too out of hand!” she shouted as she finally reached the end of the veritable river, clambering out gratefully onto the secure and wonderfully dry wooden floor.

          Except . . . the wood looked odd. Some of it looked warped and there were cracks running through it, and around some of those cracks she could see the onset of rot creeping through the boards. And now that she looked, she realized that the lights were actually _on_ , they were just incredibly dim and dirty, some not even working at all.

          And the walls were covered in posters.

          Now, that on its own was normal, but . . . these posters were all very old, and as she walked down the hall and examined them, she saw that some dated back to their earliest episodes. Nearly all were about Bendy. Some of Boris, and . . . and one of her. At the very end.

          ‘Sent From Above’. Her premiere, and Susie’s too. She still had a poster in her room, for while the rest had gone by the wayside, she kept the very first for herself, to treasure the tender memory that it was. Reaching out, she touched the image with her hand, feeling the old, yellowed parchment crinkle and crack beneath her gloved fingers. It was . . . so _old_. Like it had never left. And yet, it shouldn’t be here at all.

          The wood groaned around her, stressing the silence that hung heavy in the air, and a trickle of unease began to travel down her back. Where were all the new posters? Why were the lights all broken, and the walls deteriorating? And where were Bendy and Boris?

          Shivering, the angel backtracked to where she’d come. Her room had been just down the hall, her toon companions must be nearby, somewhere!

          Except, as she turned the corner to that hall, her feet came to a dead stop.

          The river was gone. Like it had never existed. And where a hallway should have been was only a small nook impressed into the wall, with an iron wrought gate inside marking the existence of an old elevator.

           She stared at it. And stared some more. Then, “No. No no no no, th-there was a hallway here, I _know_ there was a hallway here, where did it go?!”

          She paced back and forth before the elevator, as if doing so would shatter the illusion and bring the corridor back. But it remained, as real and fixed as he was, and made Alice genuinely wonder if she’d imagined it. But no, that couldn’t be possible. You don’t just imagine falling into a pool of ink! Her clothes were still stained, for heaven’s sake!

          She placed her hands on her hand and forced herself to breathe and calm down. Maybe . . . maybe she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere? It _was_ dark, and she _was_ rudely awoken from a brief slumber. Things could get a bit . . . disoriented because of that.

          But . . . an entire hallway . . . and her room was nowhere near the only elevator in the studio . . .

          What was going on? While admittedly prone to strangeness, the studio wasn’t _that_ odd. Outside of the ink, most everything stayed where it was supposed to. And no amount of smoke and mirrors could do this, unless . . . was Joey responsible? But he had gone home for the night! Unless he’d done something before he left . . .

          A sudden knock behind her jolted Alice from her meditation, and she spun around on reflex. There was only a single door behind her, one she had only given a glance when she’d passed it, but the knock had unmistakably come from it. She remained where she stood, frozen, watching it warily, freezing again when a shadow passed over the window set into the wood. It was tall, easily the height of a human, but what human was here after hours? They had all left.

          The shadow didn’t do anything though, and after a minute of silent staring, Alice very, very softly, and after a slow, dry swallow, whispered, “B-Boris? Is that you?”

          At the sound of her voice, something very heavy and very strong suddenly began to bang against the door, hurling against it so hard the entire frame shook beneath the blows. Alice skittered back until she hit the grate behind her, heart thudding in time with every hard, angry shudder. Fear fueling her movements, her fingers found the button impressed into the wall and began to push on it frantically, hearing the old, rusty chains begin to whir and grind to life as the elevator responded.

          _THUD! THUD! **CRACK!**_

          Alice’s hands flew to her mouth to stifle a shriek as the glass from the pane shattered outward in a spray of broken pieces, scattering across the floor in front of her. The heavy thudding stopped, but the room beyond had gone dark, not a glimmer of light to be seen. The darkness almost seemed to _pulse_ , like a grotesque heartbeat, before sloooowly, it began to _slide_ through the shattered pane, spreading across the door, the walls, the ceiling, the floor, bubbling and roiling and stinking if ink.

          Behind her, she heard the elevator settle into place.

          And something was rising out of it, something tall and dark and very much not a human at all. But its familiar . . . so familiar . . . and she can scarcely believe her eyes when she finally placed _why_.

          Hands still clapped to her mouth, shivering now in very genuine fear, Alice choked out, “B- . . . Bendy?”

          She heard the grate slide open.

          The eyeless shape in front of her tilted its running, distorted head down, and while it was certainly smiling . . . there’s nothing friendly about it. For a moment, it seemed to regard her, study her, as if it didn’t know who or what she was. Its claws twitched.

          Then it lunged.

          On pure instinct, Alice screamed and dove back, hearing wood splinter and tear and the thing’s claws rent huge divots in the floor where she’d been standing. The shadowy ink around its body pressed forward, flooding the all with darkness and decay, chasing after her like a malignant specter.

          Without pause, her hand slammed against the buttons within the elevator, and the grate began to slide shut. But the creature was already up, and it pelted forward, shoving a long, spindly arm through before the grate could close completely. It swung at her, and Alice screamed again, flattening herself against the back wall as far as she could get from those swinging claws, shaking.

          There was a stuttering jerk as the box she was in came to life again, and, blessedly, the elevator began to go down. The available space for the monster outside continued to shrink bit by bit, a monster that looked like her friend, yet couldn’t possibly be. Its permanent grin was edged by malice, and she could almost say it looked frustrated and enraged that she was slipping away, so infuriated it refused to give up its chance, even as the elevator grew lower and lower and lower, until . . .

          The elevator jerked once, and there’s a loud, sickening _crunch_ as the creature’s arm was caught between two unbending forces and was severed clean from the body. It landed in front of her with a wet _thud_ , and Alice crouched and stared, hands over her mouth and fighting not to wretch as the arm dissolved into a black, shiny puddle of ink.

          Above her, she heard a terrible sound, a cross between a shriek and a growl, but within the animalistic howl, she could have sworn she heard her own name being spat like a vile curse.

          Its only until it faded completely, and that the danger itself had passed, that Alice dropped completely to the floor and sobbed.

          Where was she?! What was going on?! That couldn’t have been Bendy, it couldn’t have been! Sure, they pranked each other, and sometimes they’d get on each other’s nerves, but he’d _never_ try to hurt her! He’d never! _He’d never!_

          But then who was that? What had happened? Was this all a dream? Was it a nightmare? This couldn’t be her studio, her home! Nothing like this was possible!

          But she received no answers. None at all.

          The elevator continued its descent, the light from the intervening floors washing over her in waves, the silence hanging heavy save the sounds of her sobs and the deep, rusty clinking of the elevator itself. After what felt like an eternity, a time which allowed her to recollect herself, it came to a slow, faltering stop, and the doors slowly slid open, washing the interior with light.

          Sniffling, Alice picked herself up and wiped at her face. As scared as she was, she knew she had to move. If that . . . thing was still up there . . .

          She shook her head. No, just . . . just _go_. Just move.

          Taking another deep breath, she stepped out into the space beyond.

          It was like no area in the studio she had ever seen before. Perhaps because _her_ studio had no level ‘9’, for starters. Oh, she should have gone up, to the entrance! She doubted there was an exit down here! But then, to get to the entrance, she’d have to pass by the floor where that . . . thing was. What if it was still there?

          She didn’t really have many options. Slowly, carefully, she walked over and leaned over the banister before her, examining the floor below, to see if there was anything of interest. But nothing moved. It looked like she was alone here.

          Alice didn’t know if she should feel comforted by that or not.

          Quietly, she began to make her way back to the elevator. She couldn’t explain it, but something about this place rubbed her ink the wrong way. Something that made her want to leave, and not look back. Perhaps she could try her luck on a different floor.

          “And just where do you think you’re going, little _thing?_ ”

          Alice froze.

          That . . . that sounded like . . . !

          “Do you think you can just . . . waltz in here, in _my_ domain . . . and then just walk away? Oh, no, sweet _thing_ , I don’t think so.”

          That was when the elevator whirred again, grate sliding closed, and Alice shouted in horror and ran to it. Her hands slammed against the iron gate and she attempted to pull it back open, feet digging into the ground, but to no avail. Slowly, helplessly, Alice could only watch as her only exit slowly rose up and vanished from view.

          Shivering, Alice backed away, looking left and right for any sort of weapon she could grab, because she could feel to the very depths of whatever made up her heart that she was in terrible, terrible danger. And that _voice_ . . . it couldn’t be _possible_ . . . It _couldn’t_ be!

          “That’s it, come back. You have a special invitation, after all, and I _always_ have time for a _fan_.”

          There’s a loud, heavy clang, and the lights suddenly went out over her head, casting her deep in shadow, so dark she couldn’t see a thing. Her body froze rigidly, feeling a renewed sense of terror as the darkness enclosed her completely.

          Shaking again, Alice choked out through her fear, “W-who . . . who are you?”

          “Oh . . . don’t you know anything? Here . . . maybe this will refresh your memory.”

          There was a cut within the static of the hidden speakers, the sound it made when the audio was being switched over to something new.

          And then a song began to play.

          A song she knew well.

          _‘I’m the cutest little angel, sent form above, and I know just how to swing~’_

          “No . . .” she whispered.

          _‘I got a bright little halo, and I’m filled with love . . . I’m Alice Angel!’_

“No, _no_ _. . .!_ ”

          _‘I’m the hit of the party, I’m the belle of the ball, I’m the toast of every town’_

“Stop it!”

          _‘Just one little dance, and I know you’ll fall . . . I’m Alice Angel!’_

“Y-you can’t be, that’s not possible!”

          _‘I ain’t no flapper, I’m a classy dish, and boy can this girl sing~’_

“ _Stop it!_ ”

          _‘This gal can grant your every wish-,’_

          The audio abruptly cut out with a static screech, the room descending into silence, the lights flickering back on.

          But now, there’s a person standing in front of her, skin as pale as porcelain, clothes as black as night, and Alice can only stare up in utter horror at a woman whose face was a twisted, torn reflection of her own. And from her malformed lips, in Alice’s own voice, she sang a single, terrifying sentence, “I’m Alice Angel.”

          Alice couldn’t speak. She’s frozen, horror, shock, terror, confusion, all of it running together hopelessly, paralyzing her.

          “What’s this now?” ‘Alice’ purred, and the toon had to swallow back nausea as the torn skin and muscle around the woman’s jaw flexed and pulsated visibly, “Has my beauty rendered you speechless, little _thing_?”

          The woman stalked to her, like a cat before a mouse, and Alice jerked away, only for her foot to slip in the ink and send her plummeting onto her back. Panicking, she tried to clamber upright, scooting back, away from the terrifying creature in front of her.

          “You should be happy. After all, you get to see your idol up close and personal,” the woman said, leering, “But, the important question remains; what should I do with you, now that you’re here?”

          Her throat felt so very dry, but Alice forced herself to speak, fighting to keep her teeth from chattering, “W-who are you?”

          ‘Alice’s’ face dropped into an unamused frown, and she tried not to quail from it, “Haven’t you been paying attention? I’m Alice Angel! The little gift the devil himself sent from above!~”

          Her words leave before she can stop them, “No, you can’t be! I-!”

          A hard, painful slap is delivered to her cheek, leaving Alice stunned. It stung, badly, and she cupped it in her hand even as she dared to look back at the now glaring ‘angel’ looming over her head.

          “How dare you. You come crawling into _my_ place, dolled up in _my_ image, and yet you think can call yourself an _angel_?! _You_ , some malformed freak who couldn’t even get her model right?!” anger is dripping from every word, and Alice knew now that she’d crossed a line she hadn’t even known existed. But in the false angel’s rage, the sickly sweetness had dropped, and she can hear another voice now, one that’s also familiar, but its trapped behind an echo, like another voice still is vying for control.

          Suddenly, a hand dug into the collar of her night-shirt, and Alice is yanked off the ground and pulled up face-to-ghoulish face with her terrifying other, whose single good eye is flashing with rage, “You were interesting, for a little while. I thought maybe you might help me ascend to my perfection. But you’re just another mistake, a _sham_ pretending to be an angel! _I’m_ the only angel here!”

          The woman sneered in Alice’s face, “But they do say impersonation is the poorest form of flattery. How about this, little _thing_ , since you’re so keen on being me . . . I tear you apart, piece by piece, and I decide how perfect you really are!”

          Every word, every threat, is terrifyingly meant, and it left her shivering to the core . . . but this close, Alice saw something she hadn’t seen before. Beneath the horns and the twisted halo, this psychopath’s face is familiar too, in a different way. Her hair is black, her iris is gold, and half her skin is a melted, bulging mess . . . but it’s there, in the curve of her jaw, the shape of her eye. And without the veneer of fake sweetness, with that second voice so intimately close, it clicked together, and a horrifying realization dawned on her. And she wanted to believe she was wrong. She wanted to believe that so _desperately_! But now that she’s seen it, she can’t forget.

Because you don’t forget a face you’ve cared for, for so long.

          Looking again into that eye full of rage, all Alice can get out is a soft and mortified whisper, “Susie?”

          The only eye she can bare to look at widened, and suddenly, the fingers around her neck grow slack. Alice dropped back to the floor, and she wasted no time in shooting back to her feet, stumbling away from the demented creature- _how can she be Susie?_ -even as the woman watched her.

          “Susie,” the other ‘Alice’ murmured, and it almost looked like she was in some kind of daze, “Susie, Susie, Susie, _dear_ , _sweet_ Susie.”

          There’s a giggle, one that gets progressively harsher and deeper until it sounds like a sob, the woman’s shoulders shaking as her hands come up and fist themselves in her long, black hair. Something inside Alice’s heart beats in sympathy, despite her fear; if this . . . if this is really Susie . . . good god, what had happened to her?

          But then, the sobbing suddenly rose in pitch, descending into a mad fit of laughter that’s anything but happy or amused. It had her shivering all over again, and reminded her that whatever horrible thing had happened here, whether this was Susie or not, she was still in very real danger.

          “Dreams come truuuuue, Susie . . .” the woman muttered, head lolling back, sounding more and more deranged by the second. Slowly, Alice began to back away, toward the stairs . . . a part of her wanted to help, get this woman the aid she clearly needed . . . but she knew there wasn’t anything she could do. Not here, not now.

          Alice-Susie’s head suddenly jerked back, golden eye locking onto the toon, and she froze in knee-jerk terror. The woman laughed again, “I’m an angel . . . I’m _perfect!_ And I’ll kill anyone who says otherwise! You hear me, little _thing?_ I’ll kill you! _I’LL KILL YOU!_ ”

          Pure survival kicked in, and Alice turned and bolted. She could hear the other one’s footsteps behind her, and that only fuels her to run faster. But there are precious few doors open, save for the giant, open maw at the very back of the massive room, its iron doors like the hungry mouth of a giant beast beckoning its prey into its dark gullet. But considering what’s behind her, Alice took it immediately.

          Her fingers grab at a row of shelves just inside the doorway, and she pulled it as hard as she could, dislodging it from its place and sending it crashing across the opening. She did this to every object not nailed down, creating an obstacle course between her and the enraged ‘angel’ following at her heels, desperate to create some barricade between them so she could have time to hide.

          The smell of ink grew horrendously powerful here, so much so she thought she could taste it on her tongue. It was cloying, stinging, absolutely everywhere, and she wondered if she’d ever be able to look at the stuff again after this.

          She rounded another corner, pelting forward until she entered another huge chamber, and this one is filled with ink, crossable only by boards and planks that had been arranged across the dark, turgid swells. But instead of crossing to the other side, to hopeful safety, she stopped dead.

          There’s a table in front of her. It’s the only thing she’s aware of, and it’s the only thing she can look at. Hands going to her mouth, Alice let out a yell that’s half a scream and half a sob, because who was _on_ that table, torn open and dead, was someone she recognized, “ _Boris!!_ Oh my god, _Boris!!_ ”

          She stumbled back, still screaming, still sobbing, only to feel herself collide with something firm and cold. In an instant, hands dig into her shoulders like iron knives, hard enough to leave welts, and she heard the nightmare chasing her breath into her ear, “Do you like it? They made me so beautiful. A shame they won’t do the same for you.~”

          Then, one hand twisted itself into Alice’s hair and jerked her to the side, to the wells of ink that bubbled and churned below the wooden planks. The toon was shoved towards it, so close her feet scraped along the edge as she struggled to keep her precarious balance, and Alice twisted and writhed as hard as she could, but the woman held strong and fast.

          “Back to the ink with you, so I can return to my work. I have an errand boy I need to see to. And . . . do say hello to the voices for me.”

          There’s no dramatic chord or singing choir, or any fanfare at all. Just bubbling ink, a malicious giggle, and the tiniest little push against her back.

          Then her head is under the waves, pulled down by something she can’t see, but can _feel_ , and no matter how hard she tried, Alice could only watch as the surface grew farther and farther away.

          -

          Her body jerked to the left, arms flailing as she fought to free herself from what she was entrapped in, only to momentarily feel weightless before hitting a hard, yet dry surface. The impact jolted her properly awake, and she sucked in a hard, terrified breath as she pushed herself to her knees, finding herself alone in her own room with her sheets wrapped around her legs. She was alive. She was safe. She was home.

And as soon as she realized those three critically important things, she _sobbed_.

          She curled in on herself, arms wrapped around her body and forehead pressed against the cool, hardwood floor, tears dotting the varnish beneath her.

          She doesn’t think she can recall ever having a nightmare like that before. She never wants to have one like it ever again.

          It’s that moment she heard her door suddenly swing open with a forceful _thud_ , and she jerked upright in reactionary panic. The lights switched on, and she has to blink away the stars that appear, but when they do, she can’t help but sag in relief when she sees and recognizes the two shapes that are hurtling towards her.

          “Alice! Alice, are you alright?” Boris was the first to reach her, and her heart swelled at the sight of him, so relieved that she can’t stop herself from throwing her arms around him as soon as he’s near. He faltered for a moment, but he very quickly returned it, patting her back comfortingly.

          “Alright, where’s the mook at?!”

          Alice, after a very quick moment to wipe away some of her tears, glanced up at Bendy, who was standing beside them with his hands around a bat that’s almost as big as he is. But he’s unmistakably _her_ Bendy. Running to her aid like a dashing hero, and had she been in the mood, she might have teased him about it.

          But right now, all she can feel is relief, as well as a hollow weariness.

          “Its . . .” her voice is throaty and rough, and she made an attempt to clear it before continuing, “Its fine, Bendy. I just . . . had a nightmare.”

          That has him looking at her, “A nightmare?”

          She nodded, but she didn’t feel like giving them a breakdown of it. One time was enough.

          Boris patted her back again, “Well, it’s over now. Everythin’s okay.”

          She nodded again, and she let the silence wash over her appreciatively. This one is different. This one is comforting.

          Then, “What kinda nightmare?”

          Alice looked at Bendy, brow furrowing. She almost lectured him on asking about things she clearly didn’t want to talk about, until she looked closer. His eyes weren’t filled with curiosity at all, but rather with worry, and . . . maybe even a little fear, and on his brow, the tiniest trickle of ink had begun to drip.

          It was then she simultaneously remembered and realized why he was asking, and she immediately shook her head, placating, “Oh, Bendy, no, its . . . it’s not like that, I’m sure. It was just . . . just . . .”

          She didn’t know what it was. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. But, the more she thought about it . . . could it have possibly been another episode like what Bendy had? But how? She had been sure Joey had learned his lesson.

          “Not like what?” Boris asked, puzzled.

          But Bendy only looked more upset, running a hand between his horns in exasperation, “Agh, I can’t believe it! I made Joey promise not to mess with that stuff again! What’s he thinkin’?!”

          “Joey?” Boris started, when his eyes widened in realization, “Oh . . .”

          “I swear, when I see him tomorrow, I’m gonna give him what-for!” Bendy promised, and Alice had no doubt he meant it. She had half a mind to join him.

          “Hey, Alice . . .” Boris started, and she saw that he was looking at her face in concern, “Does that hurt?”

          She blinked, “Does . . . what hurt?”

          “You got a nasty bruise on your cheek,” Boris said, pointing, “Ya want me to get ya some ice for it?”

          “A . . . bruise?”

          Alice lifted hand to the spot Boris had pointed to, cupping the area gingerly, only to wince at the ache the touch brought.

          When had she . . . ?

          There’s no noise in reality then, but almost like an echo, she heard the sound of slap ring in the back of her mind.

          Her hand dropped immediately, and she swallowed, feeling a shiver run through her body. No, no, she just banged it in her sleep. That was all.

          “Alice? You . . . okay?” Bendy asked tentatively.

          Taking a quick breath, she nodded, “Yeah, just . . . waking up still. I just need to . . .”

          At first, she didn’t know what she needed. But the more she thought, the more obvious the answer became.

          “I need to call someone.”

          Which found her at the public phone the whole staff used, a piece of paper clutched in her hand even though she had memorized the number by heart. She rung it once, then twice, then three times, waiting and waiting and waiting, until she finally heard a soft, unmistakable _click_.

          “Hello?” A tired voice murmured through the phone.

          “Susie?” Alice started softly, and the painstakingly familiar and warm voice nearly had her bursting into tears again.

          “Alice?” the woman asked, and maybe the angel hadn’t spoken as evenly as she would have liked, because Susie’s voice is suddenly much more aware and alert, “Alice, is something wrong?”

          The toon shook her head, even though the woman wasn’t physically there, “No, no, I just . . . I just nee- . . . wanted to talk to you.”

          There’s a moment of silence. Then, “Alice Angel, I’ve worked with you for over thirty years now, and I know when our resident songstress isn’t her usual chipper self! Now what’s wrong? Did something happen?”

          “Um, not really,” Alice started, and she felt more embarrassed by the second, “It was just a . . . a bad dream.”

          “A bad dream?” now, had she been anyone else, Susie would have been incredulous. But instead, there’s only the utmost seriousness as the woman’s voice dipped, “Now, are we talking the kind of bad dream brought on by too much ink consumption, or the kind of bad dream brought on because Joey did another demonic ritual again?”

          “We’re . . . debating that,” Alice answered honestly.

          Susie sighed. Then, with a much more cheerful lilt, said, “Well, looks like I’m coming into work early today! You wouldn’t happen to know any coffee places open at this hour?”

          “Susie . . .”

          “Yeah, you’re right, probably not. Guess I’ll just have to settle for that gloriously bad stuff everyone at work drinks!” there’s a rustle on the other end of the line, and a soft, clearly not meant to be heard, “Now where’d I leave my shoes?”

          “Susie, you don’t have too,” Alice said, but she knew the woman had already made up her mind.

          “Mm, too late! Already halfway out the door! And when I get there, we can talk!” Alice can hear the smile in the woman’s voice, “Just us girls!”

          The angel smiled, feeling warmed in a way she hadn’t been moments prior, “Right. Just us girls.”

          “See you in twenty!”

          _Click._

          The line went quiet, and with a smile still on her face, Alice held the phone close to her chest.

          _That_ was her Susie. _This_ was her studio.

          And while maybe she wouldn’t shrug it off immediately, all she’d have to do was look at it all and know that her nightmare was only that, and nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me long enough to get to something chapter 3 related, gosh. 
> 
> Also, I don't know if its been confirmed if Susie is actually the Alice Angel in the game, but it sure makes it a hell of a lot more dramatic, don't it? :)
> 
> Also,Also, Hell's Studio Susie is a delight to write.


	3. Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who's that watching through the wall?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, welcome back! I bet you thought this was over! Well think again! This time with a two-fer!

          Henry knew that being the unnamed peacekeeper in the studio came with a lot of unnamed and unnecessary burdens. Burdens that progressively got more and more wearisome the older he got. But, with who his boss was and his coworkers being who they were, he found that a little weariness was preferable to the chaos that could be unleashed if their temperaments were left unchecked.

          Still though, there were times he sincerely wished someone else had the job. Like right now, as he stood between an utterly irate Susie Campbell and Bendy, who were both glaring at a shocked and cowering Joey Drew, who seemed to be slipping lower and lower beneath his desk the longer the glaring continued. Henry can’t quite fault him. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Susie this angry.

          “Out with it!” Bendy demanded, pointing an accusatory finger at the man, “You messed with that dream magic again, didn’t ya?!”

          Joey frantically shook his head, waving his hands in front of his face, “No, I swear! I haven’t touched it ever since the first time!”

          Susie crossed her arms, her normally cheerful face full of thunder, “Then why is Alice having dreams now? You can be impulsive at the best of times, Joey, but I really thought you had learned your lesson the last time!”

          “I did!” Joey defended, only to sink just a little deeper behind his desk at the disbelieving and burning glare the woman sent his way, to the point where only his nose and spectacles were visible. Slowly, his hand rose up over the edge like a boy scout in training, voice soft but plaintive, “I promise, I haven’t touched it. I don’t know why this is happening, honest.”

          Henry felt the beginnings of a headache brewing, a familiar feeling, and he pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers to alleviate it as he sighed, “Alright, alright, everybody calm down.”

          Susie planted her hands on her hips and Bendy crossed his arms, foot tapping a mile a minute, but they both stopped yelling. Joey, after a moment to ascertain that he _wasn’t_ about to be chewed out again, carefully pulled himself back up over the desk, quietly fixing his askew glasses.

          Dropping his hand, he looked at Susie, “So, Alice had a . . . nightmare?”

          The woman nodded curtly, lips pursed and glaring at Joey. Henry pressed the palms of his hands together, frowning.

          “And . . . you’re sure it was like what Bendy went through?” he questioned slowly, trying to pick his words very carefully. The toon devil still hadn’t really talked to anyone about what he had experienced, a sure sign in Henry’s eyes that even though it had been a few weeks since, he was still privately dealing with it. He didn’t want to dredge up any bad memories, but the animator had to be sure that this was really what that was and not just a knee-jerk reaction to something more simple.

          “Alice don’t get nightmares, at least not like that Henry,” Bendy said with certainty, “I’ve lived with the gal for _years_ , I’d know.”

          A very solid point. Still, Henry wished he could ask Alice herself, if only to hear her side of the story. As it stood, she was currently in the studio watering hole with Boris, ‘recovering’ at Susie’ insistence.

          With another sigh, Henry gestured to the man who caused more headaches than anyone else combined, “Joey, is it possible you got into that stuff again? Even by accident?”

          The other man pushed at his glasses and fiddled with his tie, fidgeting beneath the withering looks Bendy and Susie were giving him, “Erm, well, uh . . . not that I’m consciously aware of?”

          “And what does that mean?” Henry asked.

          “Just that maybe I could have chanted something in my sleep or something similar? One time I woke up standing in my bathroom with a runic circle dawn entirely in macaroni shells!” Joey’s levity quickly deserted him when both toon and actress frowned, “ _But I’m sure I could remember a dream augury if that were the case!_ ”

          Henry sighed. Truly not the sort of thing he had expected to sort out when he had walked into work this morning.

          “Criminy . . .” Bendy muttered, pinching the space between his eyes in annoyance.

          Joey cleared his throat, “I could look into it. I just need the book I used back!”

          “Well, its with all yer other books, ain’t it?” Bendy asked, hand up in the air in query.

          Joey tapped his fingers together and pursed his lips, and Henry felt a rising dread, “Joey? What is it?”

          “Chm, well, you see, after that whole debacle, I decided it was best to put the book where I wouldn’t be tempted to use it, so I . . . might have thrown it down in the basement . . .”

          “Well, that’s not that bad,” Susie said, ever optimistic, “We just need to go to the room you stored it in, right?”

          “Uh, well, that’s the other thing . . . I may have,” Joey held up both hands, a nervous smile on his face, “. . . tossed it down one of the chutes?”

          Henry closed his eyes and tilted his head back. Now, an ordinary chute would ordinarily have just one destination, correct? Well, not at Joey Drew studios. To accommodate all the pipework the ink machine required, a lot of the internal structure had to be altered as well. Including the chute system, which was pretty much defunct after all the changes. Toss something down there, the chances of ever finding it again were nil. Most people used it as a sort of secret waste receptacle, though signs were put up to dissuade people from doing that. And now, well, the book they needed was in there somewhere too.

          “Fantastic,” he mumbled.

          “ _Why_ , Joey? The one time ya actually try to control yourself, ya gotta muck that up too!” Bendy said, unbelieving.

          Joey rubbed the back of his head, looking just a mite chastised, when the phone on his desk suddenly began to ring. The man had it up in a flash, pressing the phone to his ear and saying, “Ah, hello, Joey Drew speaking, how may I help you?”

          There’s a moment of silence as the person on the other end of the line speaks, before Joey’s eyes lit up, “Oh, Bertrum! Bertrum Piedmont! I was just waiting for your call! Can I call you Bertie? Oh, forgive me, wait one moment, if you will-”

          The man carefully covered the receiver, looking at Henry pleadingly, “Sorry, old friend, but I’ve been waiting for this call for days now! I promise, I’ll get right on searching for the book once it’s through!”

          “Joey-,” Henry started, but the other man was already back on the line.

          Henry sighed, then ushered the other two towards the door. He knew exactly what this call was about, and Joey hadn’t been lying when he said he’d been waiting for it for a while. There was no getting him off the line now. Internally, Henry wondered if Joey would actually make this new little enterprise work, and if he did, Henry couldn’t help but feel pity for poor Grant. Joey was truly going to drive him to madness in this studio one day.

          Outside, Susie crossed her arms and huffed, “The chute system? Really?”

          “I hear ya, sister,” Bendy said in complete agreement, looking annoyed.

          Henry nodded, “I know. We’ll just have to bear with it, though. Joey will fix it eventually.”

          “Ha, I ain’t waitin’ around for something else to happen, no way! I’m goin’ down there, I’m bringin’ that book back, and I’m gonna make Joey sit there and read through every page until he finds a way to fix it! _Today!_ ” Bendy’s declaration caught both humans off guard, and they shared a troubled glance.

          “But you might be down there forever!” Susie protested, “Remember when Wally threw those music sheets Sammy had made away by accident? It took almost a _week_ to find them again!”

          “I know that, but I don’t want to be sittin’ on this,” Bendy said, with that utterly stubborn look on his face that said he absolutely was not backing down from his stance, “Think a how much trouble it would be if this startin’ hittin’ everyone else! Production would slow, moral’d go down, it just be one giant mess!  
          “But-!”

          Henry cut Susie off before she could finish, “Hey, there’s no need to fight so much about it. Look, Bendy, I get wanting to get this sorted. We can look for a little while, at least until someone comes calling, okay?”

          “We?” Bendy asked.

          “Well, figured an extra pair of eyes would help,” Henry said with a small smile, “Even if they’re old ones.”

          Bendy smiled a little, looking touched, but hiding beneath a sarcastic reply, “Eh, I guess. Just don’t lose your glasses, okay? Don’t wanna be leadin’ you by the hand.”

          “You got it, boss.”

          Pacified, at least for now, the devil began to make his way to the basement door. Beside him, Susie sighed, “Well, I guess there’s no talking him out of it, is there?”

          “Not when he’s like this,” Henry said, scratching his head.

          Susie pursed her lips, looking a touch concerned, “Henry, do you think, since you’ll be alone for a bit . . . you could get him to talk? If its as bad as what Alice went through . . . this must really be bothering him.”

          “Alice told you?”

          “Only a little,” Susie shrugged, “But I hardly needed to hear more to get the idea. Speaking of, I should probably go and make sure she’s alright. Our girl’s tough, but even tough girls can get shaken up from time to time.”

          Henry nodded, “You do that. Let them know where we are too, so that way they don’t worry.”

          “Of course! And maybe later, we’ll join you! Just . . .” Susie glanced at Bendy’s retreating back, “Make sure he doesn’t overexert himself until then.”

          “I will.”

          At least, Henry sure would try.

          -

          The basement was . . . about what he expected it to be. A little dark, dirty, cramped, and kind of deserted. ‘Basement’, of course, referring to the space below what used to be the actual basement, before its renovation for the ink machine. Really, the whole thing was a convoluted mess, it’s a wonder nobody got lost.

          “Alright!” Bendy said, rolling up his sleeves, “Let’s start digging’!”

          Which they did. For a long while, it felt like. There were multiple rooms, each one full of unwanted or unused junk that nobody bothered to collect or move. But no book, as fate would unfortunately have it. Well, there were books, but not the one they wanted. No arcane symbols or demonic language to make it a clear give-away. Even when, true to her word, Susie came down with Boris to offer aid, it turned up nothing useful.

          “Holy moly, just how much stuff is down here?” Bendy asked, throwing an old, moldy book over his shoulder in the room he and Henry were searching. He then picked up something else, a plush toy made of dark cloth in the shape of one of the Butcher Gang. An older model from a failed product line, by the looks of things, “Huh, I’d wondered what they’d done with all these old toys. Couldn’t they have donated ‘em, or somethin’?”

          “Would’ve been better than shoving it all down here,” Henry agreed, furrowing his brow at what looked like a game board of some sort. Or . . . was it an ouija board? “I wonder how there’s even room anymore.”

          “Well, what we’re lookin’ for has gotta be at the top of the pile, so no need to go shovelin’ through all this junk,” Bendy said, hopping up onto a desk to peer above a large, rectangular object that was covered by a heavy tarp.

          “Uh, I’d be careful if I were you, Ben . . .” Henry warned, not liking the creak that accompanied the toon’s movements. Who knows how old some of this stuff was . . .

          “Hey! I think it’s here?” Bendy shouted, grinning. Using both hands to grip the edge of the tarp-covered object, the toon began to haul himself up to the top, disregarding the way the object ominously jostled.

          “Ben-!”

          Too late. The object began to tilt precariously to the left, and Henry lurched forward in an attempt to grab and bolster it. Bendy scrambled up and grabbed whatever it was that had caught his eye, but as Henry grabbed it to prevent it from falling, the abrupt halt caught Bendy off guard and the toon fell back with a cry. And landed right on Henry’s face.

           “Oof-!” was all Henry was able to get out as they both crashed back to the ground. Something else that was large and heavy fell on top of them as well, draping them in darkness as a loud clang echoed around the room, dust rising up in clouds.

          “Well, that coulda gone better . . .” Bendy commented softly, groaning.

          “You’re tellin’ me . . .” Henry said, sitting up and dislodging the demon off his chest. Something else rose with him too, something thick and smelling of mothballs, and Henry batted at it until it slipped off, freeing his head.

          Huh. The tarp. It must have fallen off with Bendy.

          Glancing around, Henry started for just an instant when he saw things moving in front of him and Bendy, only to realize what it was a moment later; a large, full-bodied mirror with their reflections sitting inside. It had gotten caught in the crook of some old painting pallets, propped on its side but no longer in danger of hitting the ground. The glass was dirty, and a crack ran through the top of it, its wooden frame full of chips and dents from old age and possible misuse. But the carved image of Bendy’s head crowning the top was still in remarkably good condition.

          “Huh . . . I remember this thing,” Henry commenting, standing up, “Joey used to have this in his office way back when.”

          He waited for Bendy’s comment, but when none came, Henry glanced down to find that the toon was still on the ground, nose deep in what he had grabbed; a book. A book with a heavy black cover and a bright red, decidedly demonic symbol on the front. The furrow between the toon’s brow was telling of how hard he was concentrating, his tongue out as he leafed through the pages. If not for the slight trickle of ink coming from his brow, Henry might just think he was working on another set of drawings.

          “Boss?” Henry asked, kneeling down to his level, “You alright?”

          “Mm,” The demon hummed, flipping to the next page.

          Henry cocked an eyebrow, glancing at the book before looking back to his friend, “Anything in particular you’re trying to do?”

          Bendy nodded, “Yeah, actually. Figure there’s gotta be an off switch in here somewhere. Ya know, wave ya fingers, say a few magic words, and boom, everythin’ back to normal.”

          He waggled his fingers for emphasis, but still didn’t take his eyes away from the book, flipping through it one-handed.

          Henry winced, “Yeah, um, not to doubt you’re reading comprehension skills, boss, but I really think we should leave that to Joey.”

          “Why, so he can mess up again?” for the first time, Bendy looked up, eyes narrowed and sharp, “This whole thing started cause he didn’t do it right the first time!”

          “I know,” Henry insisted, placing a placating hand on Bendy’s shoulder, “But he’s also the only one who does this stuff regularly. And he _is_ pretty good at fixing his mistakes, if nothing else. I don’t think messing with this stuff on our own is a good idea.”

          Bendy looked down, frowning, “But what if we could fix it right now?”

          “ _But_ what if we just make it worse?” Henry countered pointedly, “Bendy, I get that this is bothering you, but we have to be careful with things like this. Just be patient, and-,”

          Bendy shot to his feet, “ _No!_ ”

          Henry’s mouth fell open, completely taken aback. Sure, Bendy could get upset and annoyed, that was a part of being alive. But snapping at people? That was different. That was worrying.

          Bendy was pacing now, back and forth, flicking through the pages again with moves Henry could only call frantic, “I ain’t lettin’ this happen again, Henry! To _anybody!_ I don’t care if I gotta fix it by myself!”

          “Ben-” Henry started, inching closer.

          Bendy had stopped on a page, looking it over with hawkish intensity, “Bad enough it sets work back, but ain’t nobody should have to go through this stupid, hokey dream baloney!”

          “Bendy-!”

          “Ha, I think this is it! Let’s see, this-,”

          Henry didn’t hesitate. Jerking forward, he grabbed the book by the edges and yanked it out of Bendy’s grasp, slamming it closed.

          “ _Henry!_ ” Bendy shouted. Without warning, the toon suddenly jumped and clambered up Henry’s side like a particularly irate squirrel, reaching for the book Henry held out of reach, “Give it back!”

          Henry braced on arm on Bendy’s chest, pushing the toon back while holding the back away from him, “No, Ben! We don’t know what this stuff does!”

          “I can fix it!”

          “We don’t know that for sure!”

          The demon managed to scramble up to his head now, and Henry had to keep a stern grip on the toon’s shirt to keep him from launching himself in the direction of the book, “Just give me a chance, okay! I’m yer boss, yer supposed to listen to me!”

          “Unless the boss is making a really stupid decision! Come on, just calm down, alright?”

          “I can’t just ‘calm down’!”

          “Bendy!”

          “I have to fix this!”

          “ _Bendy!_ ”

          “You don’t know what this spell does! I have to-!”

          Closing his eyes, Henry finally reach around and grabbed the toon by the scruff of his collar and bodily hoisted him off before planting him firmly on the ground and looking him in the eye, “Bendy, _that’s enough!_ ”

          Bendy froze, eyes widening in shock, but at last he finally stilled. Henry hated raising his voice, truly, and he regretted it almost immediately. But now that things had clamed down, and with much softer tone of voice, Henry kneeled down with a hand on the other’s shoulder and said, “You’re right. I don’t know what this spell’s doing, to you or to Alice. But I can see it’s bad enough to make you not act like yourself. You _know_ that messing with this is a bad idea, and we need to leave it to Joey. It’s out of our league. You _know_ that.”

          Now the toon looked ashamed, “Y- . . . yeah. Yeah, I know. I’m just-,”

          Bendy ran a hand down his face, mouth and chin cradled in his palm as his other arm crossed over his chest like a barrier, “I’m just tired of people suffering because of it.”

          Henry’s eyes softened with sympathy, “And I get that. Everyone wants to see this wrapped up for good. _Everyone_. But we need to be careful, too.”

          Bendy nodded, not quite looking Henry in the eye, “Yeah . . .” a rueful chuckle escaped him, “I’m, uh . . . I’m sorry Henry. Flyin’ off the handle like that, some boss I am, huh?”

          Henry finally let his shoulders relax, seeing that whatever fit had taken over had passed, “It’s okay.”

          “No it ain’t,” Bendy replied somberly, “But thanks.”

          A dismal silence settled over them, and Henry, feeling his knee begin to ache, rolled over to sit next to the demon with a groan, stretching his leg out in front of him. Laying the book next to him but keeping a palm over it just so he didn’t lose it, Henry glanced at the demon and his forlorn posture before finally, tentatively saying, “Bendy? Do you . . . maybe want to talk about it?”

          “About what?” Bendy asked evasively, but with the way his shoulders tensed, Henry knew the demon was already well aware of what he was asking.

          “You know what. You haven’t spoken to anyone about that dream of yours, and its pretty obvious now that its still eating at you,” Henry said gently, hoping to coax _something_ out of the demon.

          Silence is his only reply, and Henry’s shoulders sag, disappointed. He glanced down at the book he had, frowning at it and wondering just what sort of magic it held to cast something so perversely powerful over the studio.

          Then, “Do ya ever have a dream, Henry, where everythin’s just . . . wrong?”

          Henry straightened, now listening attentively, “Wrong? Wrong in what way?”

          “Like . . .” Bendy drew a shuddering breath, “Like the studio. But . . . its not the studio you know. Somethin’s different. Off.”

          Henry’s brow furrowed as he thought, tapping the index finger of his free hand against his knee, “Hm, maybe? I once dreamt I came to work, but everything was in technicolor and Joey was making everyone carry maracas.”

          That wrings a chuckle out of the demon, but he sobered up fast, face falling, “Yeah, if only every dream was like that . . .”

          Henry let a moment of silence pass before pressing, “What made this dream different?”

          Bendy shifted so he was sitting too, pulling his knees up to his chest with his arms around his legs, chin resting atop them. He’s silent for a few seconds, his eyes far away, before slowly, very slowly, he began to speak, “. . . the studio was a mess. And, not like ‘Wally-isn’t-doin’-his-job-again’ kinda mess. Like . . . like everything had been deserted. For years.”

          “Uh-huh.”

          “And there were posters. Old ones. Back when Alice first debuted,” Bendy continued, “And nobody was around except . . .”

          Henry waited patiently, not wanting to rush this. But concern began to needle into his heart when the toon’s shoulders began to shake.

          “Hey, Henry?”

          “Yeah?”

          “Have you ever had a dream where . . . where somebody close to ya died?”

          At that, the man’s eyes widened, before very quickly creasing with sympathy. Reaching out, he placed a hand on Bendy’s back, firm but reassuring, “I have.”

          Bendy pushed back into it, maybe subconsciously, maybe not, but needing that comfort all the same, “It’s awful, ain’t it?”

          “It is,” Henry paused, mulling his next words over carefully, “Do you . . . feel comfortable talking about who?”

          At that, Bendy pushed his face into his knees, like he didn’t want to look Henry in the eye. The man was sure the toon wasn’t ready to talk about that, and that was fine, Henry honestly knew enough to know why something like that would upset the other so much, when a soft, muffled whisper had him turning his head, “What was that, Ben?”

          Bendy’s shoulders bunched a little more, ink beginning to run down the sides of his head, “. . . everyone.”

          Henry’s eyes widened again, but the toon still wasn’t’ done, voice growing a little more hysterical, “A-and I think . . . I-I think i-it was my f-fault . . .”

          “What?” Henry asked, taken aback. Shifting closer, he leaned toward the toon, putting on the best reassuring tone he had, “Bendy, whatever happened, it _was_ just a dream, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

          “I-I know! I know . . . but, whatever was in that dream _did_ do somethin’ . . . somethin’ bad,” Bendy glanced at the mirror, to his own reflection, before shuddering and looking away, “ _Real_ bad . . .”

          More silence, and Henry hated that he was at a loss for what to do. Bendy was rarely ever one to be flustered or haunted by anything, and even if he was, one good talk and he was right as rain the next day. Biting his lip, Henry patted his shoulder, “Whatever was in that dream, it’s still just that. A dream. Not real life. You’re fine and so’s everyone else.”

          “A dream ain’t got no business feelin’ as real as it did . . .”

          “That’s the magic part, probably,” Henry supplied, patting the book, “And it’s magic we’re gonna undo. Eventually.”

          “. . . I still get ‘em sometimes . . .”

          Henry froze, “What?”

          “I mean . . .” Bendy shrugged, “They aren’t . . . as bad. I don’t remember 'em like I do the first one, but . . . yeah . . . wakin’ up thinkin’ yer in danger ain’t a nice way to start a morinin’.”

          Henry frowned. This had really stuck with Bendy, this dream of his. He knew there was undoubtedly much more going on for the toon to feel this way, but pressing for details . . . it didn’t seem like it would help.

          Gently, he gave the other’s shoulder a squeeze, “Well, if you ever need to talk about that, you know I’m always open.”

          “Thanks, Henry. To be honest, I was hopin’ they’d be gone by now . . .”

          “Do you still get them?”

          “Not as much. But the fact that it’s still happenin’ . . . and now Alice is gettin’ ‘em, too,” Bendy said despondently, “Honestly, _what_ was Joey hopin’ to accomplish with this schlock?”

          “Something none of us sane humans can fathom, I’m sure. But we’ll fix it,” Henry promised. It meant having to hover over Joey’s shoulder, but if that was what it took to get this sorted, then so be it, “I promise.”

          Bendy nodded, but his gaze was still middle distant, and his mood obviously still low. Henry thought to himself for a moment, before very lightly nudging the demon in the shoulder, coaxing, “Hey, after we give this to Joey, whaddya say we break out one of those sumi sticks you’re always hoarding?”

          Bendy gave a soft snort, “What, you sayin’ you’re gonna eat one?”

          “Hah, well, everyone always says I have an iron stomach,” Henry said, patting said stomach, “Remember how many cans of bacon soup I ate on our tenth anniversary?”

          Bendy shook his head in disgust, but a grin was beginning to peek through, “Uck, everyone does! What were ya thinkin’?”

          Henry shrugged, “Well, I mean, we still had a lot. Seemed like a waste . . .”

          “Seemed more like a good way to get food poisoning,” Bendy retorted, unfurling just a little more.

          “I survived.”

          “Barely!”

          “But I _survived_ ,” Henry reiterated, smiling openly now.

          Bendy returned it, ink sliding back into place, “Pft! If this is to prove you can eat one of _my_ sumi sticks, you got another thing comin’, pal!”

          “I think you, Alice, and Boris would all have something to say about anyone taking those,” Henry said, and he knew he wasn’t wrong. Those three guarded those things like dragons guarded their hoards.

          “Darn right!”

          Henry chuckled softly, inwardly relieved that Bendy was coming out of his somber state. Henry had hoped to learn enough so as to help the toon, and hopefully alleviate some of his stress. And he thought he had, to some extent. At the very least, he’d gained a better understanding of why this was so important to the other.

          With a groan, Henry rose to his feet, book in hand and stretching his back out with a crack. Bendy hopped up as well, straightening out his clothes, when he stilled for a moment, “Hey . . . Henry?”

          “Yeah?”

          “Thanks . . . for talkin’. I mean, it’s so . . . _stupid._ All this over some dumb dream, and-,”

          “It’s not stupid,” Henry said, gently cutting him off, “It scared you, and you’re worried about others going through that. You have every reason to be upset about this. But-,” Henry placed a hand on the toon’s shoulder, a small, comforting smile on his face, “We’ll fix it. We always do . . . eventually.”

          Bendy returned it, earnest and open, “Yeah. We do, huh?”

          Henry nodded, then glanced at the book in his hand. The sharp symbol on the cover made him uneasy, but he swallowed it down to crack the binding open and begin flipping through the pages.

          “Uh, Henry, what- . . .?” Bendy started, flummoxed.

          “Relax. I’m not planning on trying anything. Just figured we could bookmark the page so Joey can get right to it,” Henry explained, squinting through his glasses as he tried to make out the tiny, squiggly writing.

          “Ah,” Bendy nodded, understanding.

          With a little help from Bendy, they located it quickly, and Henry began to search his pockets for something to use. Only to turn up lint. Great.

          “Hey, would this work?”

          Henry turned to see Bendy pick something out of one of the boxes shoved along the walls, holding it up for him to see. It looked like a ruler, almost, but made of a polished metal he couldn’t identify and with a slew of little notches on the side that may have been numbers at one point, but had long since faded out. But it would work for now.

          “I think so. Thanks boss.”

          Taking the offered object, Henry quickly secured it between the pages, fitting it snug right between the crease.

          _CRACK!_

          Henry started, only to jerk his hand up when pain flashed through the underside of his thumb. Hissing between his teeth, he waved his hand before looking around to see what had caused all the noise, only to find that one of the box towers that had been supported by the mirror had finally fallen and scattered its contents across the floor.

          “Henry? Henry, you okay?” Bendy asked, looking up at him with concern.

          “Y-yeah. Just startled me,” Henry said.

          “No, not that! Yer bleeding!”

          Henry glanced at the demon, then at his finger, assessing the damage. Ah. Bendy was right. It was just a small cut, probably from when he’d jerked it along the edge of the old metal ruler, but the blood running down his thumb gave it the illusion that it was worse than it was. Stung something fierce, though.

          “Its alright. Looks worse than it is,” Henry reassured the other.

          “Yeah, well, let’s get it bandaged, okay? Don’t need ya bleedin’ on the artwork,” Bendy said, making light of it even though there was still a small glimmer of concern in his eyes.

          “Right, righ- . . .” Henry trailed off as he glanced down at the book, making to close it when he saw, very clearly, that a single drop of scarlet blood had landed on the open page and seemingly _sank_ into the paper, vanishing from sight, “Aaah-”

          The sinking feeling in his gut told him that _that_ was not good.

Bendy had seen it too, and in the ensuing tense silence that followed, they both exchanged a wide-eyed glance.

          “What are the chances of that makin’ things better?” Bendy asked.

          Henry opened his mouth to respond, when the ground suddenly and violently shook beneath his feet, knocking him to the floor instead, “WHOA!”

          Boxes jostled and fell, paraphernalia clattering across the floor as the lights overhead flickered. The rocking only lasted for a few seconds before dying away, but it left them both winded and terribly confused.

          Before they could even get their bearings, the door suddenly flew open, and Susie Campbell was standing in the doorway, wide-eyed and with an equally bewildered Boris behind her, “What happened?!”

          “Is everythin’ okay?” Boris asked, ears down.

          Both Henry and Bendy exchanged utterly befuddled looks, shrugging helplessly.

          Overhead, shouts of dismay and surprise suddenly went off in chorus, and everyone’s eyes went to the ceiling.

          “Oh no, now what?” Bendy started, clambering to his feet and running for the door in haste.

          Boris followed him, and Susie was about to when she looked at Henry, “Don’t forget that book!”

          Henry nodded, grabbing it almost out of reflex as the woman made for the stairs. God, just what had this done?

          He made several steps forward, ready to leave himself, when he heard the sound of glass crack behind him. Startled, Henry spun around, only to find that the mirror, while still on its side, was sporting several more cracks than before, the pane spider-webbed with jagged lines. His reflection stared back at him, his confusion apparent in the reflected face. But nothing more.

          And he would have left it at that and turned away, too, if he hadn’t caught sight of what the reflection was holding; an axe.

          Right where the book should be.

          His heart gave a thud, and Henry looked down at his hand to see that the book was still very much there. Looking back up, he saw the reflection do the same, like a reflection normally would.

          _What the hell . . .?_

          But now that he’s looking closer, he began to notice other differences too. Like the state of the reflection’s clothing, more worn and ragged and dirty than his own, with ink drenching the legs near completely. The cuts along his arms, the bruising, what looked like a black eye on his face, the fact that the other wasn’t wearing any glasses at all . . .

          Henry’s eyes narrowed. The reflection did likewise.

          His shoulder’s tensed. So did the other’s.

          Henry took a step forward.

          The reflection took a step _back_.

          A chord of fear was strummed inside him, fear and alarm and confusion all in in one. Bewildered, he met the reflection’s eyes, and he thought he could see the same feelings in them as well, a perfect mirror image . . . if not for the fact that Henry feels like he’s no longer looking at just a reflection.

          “Henry!”

          Henry jumped nearly out of his skin, a startled gasp escaping him as he whirled around. But it’s just Bendy’s voice, calling from a distance, “Henry, ya didn’t fall down, did ya? Ya comin’ or what?”

          “Y- . . . yeah, I’m coming!” Henry shouted back, but he’s already looking back at the mirror even as he spoke.

          . . . it’s him. Just him, with the book, the glasses, and all. Like that was all that had ever been there.

          Shaking a little, Henry backed out of the room slowly, unnerved. His eyes linger on the mirror for just a moment more, before shaking his head and finally turning away, closing the door behind him, “I’m coming . . .”

          -

          Its just another flood upstairs. It’s a bad one, one that required the studio to close a little early until repairs can be made and the ink cleared away, but nobody’s hurt.

          Henry’s relieved that’s all it is, even though internally, he’s still a little freaked out.

          _You’re just going soft in the head, old man,_ he tried to tell himself, _too many ink fumes._

          In front of him, Susie let out a pleased little hum as she finished bandaging his finger, smiling, “There you go, good as new!”

          “Thanks, Susie,” Henry said sincerely.

          “Don’t mention it!” even as she spoke, her face grew a little more sober, and she glanced at where the toons are gathered as they discuss where they’re going to spend the night, “Did everything go alright in there?”

          “Better than it could have gone, I guess,” Henry shrugged, “Still, its eating at him. Honestly, the sooner Joey fixes this mess, the happier we’ll all be.”

          “Amen to that,” Susie said in agreement, nodding. They both glance at where Joey’s sitting, already perusing the book they recovered as promised. Henry only hoped he found the answer soon.

          Inwardly, he knew at some point he’d have to tell him about the blood that got on it. Just to be safe. But right now, Henry honestly just wants to put this day behind him.

          “Hey, uh, don’t suppose anybody knows anythin’ . . .” Several people, including Henry, look to where Wally is. The man is looking around the lot with a perplexed expression, scratching his chin while his keys jangle in his opposite hand, and Henry bit back a sigh as he waited for the inevitable ‘where-are-my-keys’ question.

          “. . . but has anybody seen Sammy?”


	4. Always Had the Worst Luck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So Sammy liked to say. A shame the universe loved to prove him right.

         Just from walking into the office, Sammy already knew today was going to be one of _Those_ Days. From the chill up his spine just from entering, the subdued drawling from the workers he passed, and the overall malaise atmosphere, he could just _tell_. Never mind that he was still fighting off the effects of last night’s little party, a recipe for an already ugly start to the morning. Ugh, why did this studio hate him so?

         Oh sure, he could just quit. Find a new mode of living and spare his sanity. But, well, he was getting older and the prospect of trying to reestablish himself now just sounded like more hassle than it was worth. At least that’s what he told himself.

          Pushing into his office and hanging up his coat, Sammy rubbed at his eyes in an effort to quell the drumming behind them as he plunked down into his seat. And froze at the feeling of something cold and _wet_ seeping through the fabric of his pants.

          With a barely contained growl, Sammy stood up and pushed the chair back, only to find that his worst suspicions were confirmed; ink was all over it. And unfortunately for him, not just the ordinary black ink, but a bright, sunshine yellow variety he knew for a fact was only ever really used for the toons personal consumption. Judging from the empty ink bottles he now saw strewn across his desk and floor, a deeply foreboding feeling was starting to settle in his gut that his office, his _personal_ office, had been used as a party room!

          A feeling which was not a moment later confirmed when he saw the haphazardly written note sitting over his music sheets, scrawled in a clearly tipsy but legible hand,

          _Heya Sammy! Sorry about the mess, Alice just remembered those nice tunes ya got sittin’ in your office and we figured ‘hey, we’re celebratin’, he won’t mind any!’ Not a bad set ya got, but I’d recommend some more jazz. Also, Chantilly Lace? Who woulda thought our own Sammy would be ~~worship-~~_

That word was heavily scratched out, for some reason.

          _-listenin’ to that devil music?_

_Anyway, we’ll clean this up first thing tomorrow, promise! Just don’t sit in the chair right now and try not to blow a gasket, and everythin’ll be just peachy!_

_-Bendy_

          Sammy scowled at the note hard, already feeling the pounding in his skull throb just a little harder as his anger and embarrassment mounted, before turning on his heel, note in hand, and storming back out into the studio.

          Most everyone parted like the red sea before him, knowing better than to get in an irate Sammy’s way. But there were those who didn’t have a self-preservation instinct. People like Wally Franks.

          “Heh-hey, wouldya look at that! Tryin’ out a new look, Lawrence?” the janitor called out with a laugh, mop in hand and his ever annoying, stupid smirk on his face, “I dunno that yellow’s really your color!”

          “I will end you, Franks,” Sammy snapped without breaking stride. He could vent his wrath on the man _after_ he’d yelled at a certain toon. The janitor just laughed like he was wont too, wholly unconcerned with his threat. A mistake he would rue, on that Sammy vowed.

          He’d gone to Joey’s and Bendy’s respective offices so many times now in a fit of vengeful peak throughout the years he could walk the path blindfolded now, but when he threw the toon’s door open (Bendy hardly had that courtesy for him, so why should he?), it was only to find an empty room. Eyebrow twitching, Sammy gave the office a seething once over, having to fight the urge to throw as much ink as he could onto the place in retribution because even still, the irritating little devil was his boss, and he wasn’t so enraged that he couldn’t think clearly. Yet.

           “Sammy?”

          _That_ was a familiar voice, and Sammy turned to find several equally familiar faces in Susie, Alice Angel, and Boris, all who were standing just behind him, a medley of perplexed and slightly amused expressions being shared across them. Sammy grit his teeth as he turned to hide the bright yellow stain on his clothes, but he already knew it was far too late and Susie would undoubtedly bring it up at a less than opportune time. With a purposefully deep breath to compose himself-although privately still a little annoyed because _everything_ -Sammy looked them over and said, “Susie. You haven’t happened to have seen Bendy anywhere, have you?”

          Susie pressed her fingers to her lips, poorly hiding her smile, “Pft, um, he and Henry went to the basement. They’re . . . snrk . . . looking for something.”

          “Don’t laugh.”

          “Hhf-who said-,” Susie forcefully cleared her throat, “Who ever said I was laughing, Sammy?”

          He just gave her a long, pointed look, which only made it harder for the woman to keep her composure. Behind his sniggering coworker, Boris plaintively rubbed the back of his head, “Gee, we’re sorry, Sammy. We _were_ gonna clean it up . . .”

          Beside him, Alice nodded slightly, arms folded around several music sheets, “We just got a little . . . distracted.”

          Now, Sammy was not the greatest at reading other people’s feelings or even really caring, but he’d been around Alice long enough to notice the decidedly soft, distracted tone of her voice. And the bags under her eyes. And the slouch in her normally upright posture. And . . . was that a bruise?!

          “What happened to you?” he asked, a tiny little needle of concern piercing through his irritation, peering at the mottled monochrome mark on the angel’s cheek.

          Alice brushed a self-conscious hand over her face, like she was trying to sort out a mess, “Oh, nothing really. Just a rough night.”

          Boris patted her shoulder consolingly, and Susie’s chuckling had stopped completely to send the angel a worried glance. Unusual. And a little disquieting.

          Alice noticed, waving a hand at him, “Its alright Sammy. Joey, Henry and Bendy are working on it. Mostly. In fact, we were going to go help them right now.”

          That got both his curiosity _and_ his dread going, eyebrow rising, “Working on _what_ , exactly?”

          At that, the three exchanged a glance, which was just all sorts of foreboding and positively _reeked_ of ‘It’s-Joey’s-fault-but-we-can’t-tell-Sammy’.

          He pressed his finger to his temple, massaging the ache. Ugh, he guessed the blessed silence on occult garbage couldn’t last forever. Much as he wished it would, “It’s something Joey did, isn’t it?”

          Aaaand there’s the collective wince. Fantastic.

          “Well . . . he’s claiming innocence, but we’re in the process of making sure,” Susie eventually said, pressing the tips of her index fingers together and looking at him in a way that said she didn’t really want to go into much further detail than that. Honestly, when it comes to Joey’s nonsense, Sammy always found himself dead center on that teetering line of not wanting to know anything at all and also desperately needing every detail if only _avoid_ any sort of fiasco that involved ink and his own person. 

          “. . . of course.”

          There’s a moment of awkward, stuffy silence where the three in front of him fidget, before Susie puts on another of her showman smiles and said with a clap of her hands, “ _Well_ , we must be going now, Sammy! Time waits for no man or woman, and we have lots of things to do today! Good luck finding a clean pair of pants!”

          That has him scowling even as she collects the two toons and trots away, leaving him standing alone in the hallway.

“Sorry about the mess Sammy!” Boris called out, “We’ll make it up to ya!”

. . . a minor consolation. Very minor. Great, not even an hour into his shift and Joey’s back into his usual idiotic antics, Bendy and Henry are both m.i.a, and he had an office to clean in order to get anything done!

          . . . and just where was he supposed to get a new pair of pants!?

          He’s about to head back to his office when he noticed the group ahead of him has stopped. Alice has one of her hands wrapped around Susie’s, and she’s whispering to the woman almost urgently. Susie listened, then smiled and nodded, saying something back that Sammy can’t hear.

          He raised a suspicious eyebrow when the angel trotted back over to him, a small, contrite smile on her face, “Hey, Sammy? Is it alright if I maybe help you clean up?”

          The other eyebrow joined its twin, “You want to help?”

          Alice nodded, running hand over the back of her neck, “I do. It’s our fault your room’s a mess and, well . . . I might have been the one to accidently remind Bendy about your music collection . . .”

          Sammy’s eyes narrowed, and Alice held up both her hands, “I know, I’m sorry! But I really will help you clean! Promise!”

          Sammy stared at her. Then, he nodded, “Fine.”

          -

A half hour later finds Sammy Lawrence in a marginally better mood, if only because he had help. Stuck cleaning up another’s mess would ordinarily be a colossal chore, _especially_ when he could be getting some actual work done. But Alice was always good at _not_ pushing Sammy’s buttons, and she helped efficiently, which was all he wanted.

          Still . . .

          “I should get a raise for putting up with this . . .” he muttered, dumping another empty ink bottle into his waste bin. Bendy should count his lucky stars that none of that ink had gotten on his sheets.

          “I know,” Alice said, placing another neatly made paper stack on the counter.

          Sammy glanced at her. Now, he’s not the best at reading atmosphere, but even he could see that Alice was in an unusually subdued mood, halo drooping low and shoulders bowed. She’d said ‘rough night’, but what exactly did that mean?

          Clearing his throat, he made a show of sorting his music sheets as he asked, “So, what exactly did happen last night? Did Bendy dare you to eat the ink pens, or something?”

          Alice huffed a laugh, “No, I wasn’t that jazzed. It’s a pretty big rule not to get too loose with it when Bendy’s around.”

          “Wisdom is rare in this studio,” Sammy commented with a derisive snort. Then, with a little more of a grimace, he put it to question, “And . . . what exactly, did Joey do this time?”

          There’s a sound like air being sucked through teeth, and Alice slid the folder she’d been holding on the counter away, “That’s . . . it’s not anything you have to worry about, Sammy.”

          “That’s exactly the time for anyone to be worrying.”

          Alice opened her mouth, then closed it again, seeming to realize the truth of that statement. Running a hand over her opposite one, she looked down, “It’s . . . we’re really hoping to sort this out today. And I promise its nothing dangerous, just . . . irritating.”

          Sammy quirked a disbelieving eyebrow, and Alice sighed. She looked to mull something over for a few moments in her head, before finally saying, “Sammy, do you . . . remember what happened a few weeks ago? With Bendy?”

          “That could mean a lot of things with our ‘head animator’, but if you’re talking about something speci-,” Sammy paused, hand stilling over his music. He turned around in full to face her, eyes wide now, “Wait, are you talking about the . . . dream thing?”

          Alice nodded dismally, and Sammy frowned hard, crossing his arms. Well . . . shit. Word of _that_ incident had spread pretty quickly through the studio. Yeah, most of the details were pretty hush-hush, most everyone just made a joke about Bendy sleeping on the job for once, but . . .

          But he’d been there, right outside the door demanding to know where half their management staff had gone, when . . . when the screaming had started. _Disconcerting_ failed to adequately describe it.

          Pinching the bridge of his nose, Sammy growled, “Great.”

          “Mm,” Alice hummed, slouching.

          Sammy’s hand fell away, and he was struck with the lightning realization as to why Alice was so withdrawn, “Did . . . did that happen to you?”

          Alice nodded softly, but didn’t elaborate or explain. Hell, Sammy was _not_ about to ask her to.

          “Damn . . .” Sammy said. If it was anywhere near as bad as it sounded with Bendy then . . . just damn.

          A knock on his door made them both jump out of their skin, and Sammy snapped out, “What do you want?”

          There’s a slight sigh, and Norman Polk answered, “Mornin’ to you too, Sammy.”

          “Polk,” Sammy replied, rolling his chair around to examine the damaged and figuring out how best to tackle it, “Rare of you to leave the music department during work hours.”

          “Yeah, about that . . .” the other man said, and Sammy can imagine him scratching at his chin as he spoke, “Don’t suppose ya got those music sheets ready to go? The band’s gettin’ antsy.”

          Sammy sighed irritably, giving Alice a pointed look, “Sure, I got the rough drafts, but nothing final because a few select individuals I won’t name decided to use my office as a lounge last night!”

          Another sigh, “Well, maybe we could use those? We’re on a time limit here.”

          _I know that!_ he almost snapped. Instead, he managed to ground out a more civil, “No.”

          Like hell was he letting the band perform an unfinished piece. They had trouble enough with the completed script! Outside, Norman was beginning to sound put out. Too bad, “Then will you at least be coming down at any time to supervise what we do got? Or are you _really_ going to let Jared run loose with the piano again?”

          “Who?”

          “Jared Thom- . . . you know what, no. I’m not playing that game with you again,” Norman rapped his knuckles on the door one last time, even as Alice stifled a smile, “Just get on down soon, or else even you can’t complain about what’ll happen!”

          Sammy ground his teeth. He hated it when others pointed out reasonable things, because it made it harder to dismiss it with a churlish reply. Besides, if he wasn’t there, he knew the band would botch what he did have anyway, then he’d _really_ be in a bad mood, “ _Fine_. But if I hear one word of comment from _any_ of you, there will be hell to pay.”

          He angrily thrust the chair back in place, deciding he neither had the tools nor the time to do it now. Quietly, Alice did likewise, saying, “I’ll go on ahead. Make sure everyone’s behaving themselves.”

          “Alright.”

          He watched as she made for the door, but called out right as she put her hand on the knob, “Alice!”

          She paused, looking back at him curiously, and Sammy fidgeted with his sleeves as he looked away, “You know everything’s fine. It was just a dream. You’re . . . fine”

          Well, that fell flat. Honestly, one would think old age was supposed to make you better at earnestness, but no cigar.

          But Alice was smiling all the same, her eyes glimmering with gratitude, “I know. Thanks Sammy.”

And off she went, dainty footsteps fading until they were gone. Sammy gave his paint covered chair one last rueful once over before opening his own door, and put on his best scowling face to dissuade anyone from talking to him. He’d have enough nonsense to deal with at the music department.

          He didn’t even make it to the end of the hall before the whole studio suddenly began to shake beneath his feet.

          Alarmed, Sammy braced a hand against the wall, swaying on his feet as everything rocked. In the distance, he thought he heard someone cry out, but it got drowned away when the lights above him abruptly burst.

          “SHIT!” He shouted, covering his head with an arm to protect himself from the sparks. Most scattered around him harmlessly, a few bouncing off his sleeve before dying away. This parade of sudden chaos unfortunately did not stop there, either, because all the sudden shifting caused the pipes above his head to _groan_.

          _Oh n-!_

          Sammy didn’t even get to finish his internal panic shouting, the pipes choosing exactly then to erupt with enough force to knock him off his feet. Slamming his mouth shut, Sammy floundered in the sudden river that had formed, and for a few rather panic-inducing moments, his feet couldn’t find the floor no matter which way he turned, like he’d slipped through the boards into an actual pool of blackness. But then, his heel brushed against solid ground, and he was bursting upright again, shaking his head and doing his level best to not get any of the stuff in his mouth as he gasped for air.

          Clambering back to his feet, a few thoughts were running through Sammy’s mind.

          One – what the hell just happened?

          Two – how the hell did this happen?

          And three – this was absolutely Joey’s fault in some way, and when Sammy found him, the man was going to sorely wish he didn’t have eardrums. Or nerve endings. Or just generally be _alive_.

          Sammy glanced at the utterly ruined state of his clothing, annoyed and mentally wondering whether or not he should bother attempting to save it. He’d lost so many pairs of shirts to this damn job, it’s a wonder how he didn’t spend all his paychecks on replacing them.

          “Joey Drew, you are a dead man,” he seethed.

          He began his trek to Joey’s office, already planning his tirade ahead of time, when Sammy found his steps slow and falter to a stop.

          The hall in front of him . . . looked different.

          And . . . where was everybody?

          Sammy looked back, then ahead, but the dingy darkness wasn’t playing tricks with his eyes. This . . . this hall was all torn up. It didn’t look like _any_ hall he’d been in, because ink problems aside, the repair crew did a reasonable job keeping everything up to par. But now it . . . well, it looked _bad_. And now that he listened, he realized that it . . . was quiet. Too quiet. None of the usual cries of distress and shouts of anger and general discontent whenever the ink valves burst could be heard, like . . . everyone had . . . vanished.

          _Okay, okay, slow down,_ Sammy thought to himself, fighting off the sudden feeling of unease, _this is just more of Joey’s ridiculous devil magic. You just . . . have to find your way back to the music department._

          Wherever it was . . .

          Swallowing, a little nervous now, Sammy made to backtrack to his office, looking for anything familiar amongst the dark, inky halls. His feet sloshed through puddles of ink, which were high enough to render the galoshes he wore as a preemptive measure completely moot. So now his socks were disgustingly wet and uncomfortable too, squishing with every step. Joey better reimburse him for this.

          He soon found, however, that backtracking the way he had come . . . did not take him to where he had planned. In fact, the more he walked, the more unfamiliar things seemed to get, like he’d wandered into some bizarre building Joey had failed to let anyone know existed. Its . . . unsettling. To put it _very_ mildly.

That’s when the sound of stomping feet very quickly grabbed his attention. He looked to the left so fast his neck cricked, just in time to see _something_ move out of sight around the distant corner. Something dark and thin and fast. Sammy stopped completely, muscles seizing up out of reflex, mouth very suddenly growing dry.

          “H-hello?” his voice comes out in a rather pathetic pitch, and he forcefully cleared his throat. Odd situation or not, he was still the most feared man in all of Drew Studios! He had a reputation to uphold, and acting like a little kid in a haunted house would certainly ruin it. So, with more control and a punch more annoyance for good measure, Sammy tried again, “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

          . . . Nothing. Of _course_.

          A little annoyed for real this time, Sammy spared another glance at the door in front of him, wondering what to do.

          Nothing made sense! It was like everything he knew about his job had just been torn up from the roots and dumped onto it’s head! Like a bad imitation set piece or hokey stage play! Or a-!

         Or a . . .

         . . . dream?

        A dream. Was this . . . a dream?

        Sammy glanced down at his hand, curling and uncurling his fingers. They _felt_ real. Pressing his fingers against the door felt real, too. Real wood. Cold wood. And the air was stagnant, and smelled of ink and moldy wood. Could a dream even do that?

        But . . . this wasn’t his studio. Everything was wrong, and everybody was gone, and that just wasn’t _possible_ , unless . . . it wasn’t real.

        And wasn’t Joey messing around with freaky dream magic, anyway? That _had_ to be it! What else could it be?

 _Joey, you will pay dearly._ He vowed internally, anger burning anew.

       Sammy glanced back down to where the figure had been. If this was a dream . . . and it _had_ to be . . . what did he have to lose? What else could he do, just stand around here and hope for the best? No. If he was going to be stuck here, he was going to do something! Maybe he could still beat answers out of a dream apparition, who knows?

         So he went after it. The halls were still dark, still dirty and creepy and wrong, but Sammy kept his head high, refusing to be cowed. It was just a dream. You’re always fine in a dream, after all, even a scary one.

          Rounding the corner, Sammy saw that same figure vanish again, and he shouted, “Hey!”

          He did his best to keep up with whoever it was, spurred on by annoyance and a desire to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. But as he goes, though the ground gets drier, the unfamiliarity grows even worse. Posters he recognized that shouldn’t be up at all, pipes the number of which seemed to have multiplied drastically, the sheer _mess_ . . . whatever dream this was sure went out of its way to make the whole studio change rather dramatically. It made him uneasy to think about why.

          And still, he saw nobody.

          Another turn of the corner, and he saw a door nearby slam shut before him, the person evidently having retreated inside. Huffing, both tired and annoyed and with a headache rivaling the one he got whenever Wally bothered him, Sammy stomped to the door and banged on it, loudly, “Hey! You better open up and tell me what’s going on _right_ now! Joey, if this is you, I swear, when I get my hands on you-!”

         The door _clicked_ , and gently swung open.

         Sammy’s mouth snapped closed, hand still up in the air and suddenly finding himself very unwilling to go inside. But the person he’d seen had gone there, and maybe even in a dream it would have some answers . . .

         Swallowing stiffly and telling himself he was being ridiculous, Sammy gently nudged it the rest of the way open and cautiously stepped inside. When he crossed the threshold, it’s into a small foyer-style room that is completely unfamiliar to him, with two plush couches, a wardrobe with its doors missing for some reason, and a record player spinning on the only table, playing a little melody that’s soft and static-filled, but familiar. A small lamp sat in the corner, affording the room just a little light to see by, and even though most of the room was still draped in shadow, the light was oddly inviting after wandering around in the dark. Sammy walked inside the dark room, the door swinging automatically shut behind him, and when he tried the light switch, he really shouldn’t have been surprised when nothing worked. Things don’t always go your way in a dream.

        The figure seemed to have vanished, though, leaving only an empty room. There was no one on the couches or by the table, no one seemingly hiding in the dark. Which is a little disconcerting, to say the least. But the fact that nobody was around was foreboding still. And he hated that he was the only one here. Even in a dream, shouldn’t he be able to find a familiar face?

       He peered into the wardrobe, noting the rather sparse collecting of clothes inside. More like rags than anything, and ink-stained ones at that. The couches were threadbare too, like they’d been sitting in the same place for ages without having been touched.

       The record skipped a little, and Sammy examined it a little closer, eyebrow going up when he couldn’t see any labels on it. Why was it so _familiar?_

       “Why . . .?”

       Sammy near flew into the air at the very nearby voice that had spoken completely out of nowhere, clutching at the table with both hands and biting at his lip to keep from screaming. He looked at the room again, peering into the shadows. He hadn’t seen anyone there, though, not-

       Something moved.

      Barely. A _barely_ noticeable mass of darkness that blended into the shadows so neatly you could scarcely tell it apart. But with his senses now on very high alert, Sammy noticed. Just as it started talking again, a low, quiet, miserable drawl that strummed a very real chord of alarm, because somehow, whatever it was . . .

       . . . it sounded like _him_.

       “ _Why_ , My Lord . . .? I did everything you wanted, didn’t I?”

       “What the hell . . .?” Sammy muttered, sidling around the table and taking one cautionary step closer, trying to make out what the thing was. Was this a joke? He didn’t see how, or why, or _who_ would do something like this. The last time he’d heard his own voice outside of himself was with a very unfortunate body swap experience, and last he checked, he still had all five fingers.

        He glanced at his hands, just to make sure.

        “What did I do wrong . . .?” it moaned again, despondent and sad, and let it be for the record, hearing your own voice from someone else, possible hallucination or not, is _very_ disconcerting.

        “Who are you?” Sammy demanded, managing to keep his voice fairly even and controlled. When the thing didn’t reply, he spoke with a little more force, “Hey! I’m talking to you, so answer me, you-!”

         A single glowing yellow eye met his own, and Sammy’s voice died completely, and far too belatedly, he realized maybe he should have just _left_. But now the thing had noticed him, and _something_ stirred inside its golden glow, something like recognition . . . quickly followed by sorrow and a deep, _deep_ despair.

        “Why? Why does He show this to me now, when He’s made it so clear I _failed?_ ” the thing suddenly lurched to its feet, jerking forward far more quickly than was acceptable, the light from the lamp casting it in sharp relief.

         And what Sammy saw emerge made his heart _pound_.

         A mass of ink in the shape of a man, its arms and legs running into barely recognizable shapes, the only color or feature he can see clearly being the large, bright eye that glowed like a lantern. A form that stirred up all sorts of unpleasant memories, one that left him feeling cold all over even as sweat began to gather at the nape of his neck. In one of it’s hands, Sammy can just barely make out a piece of cardboard, a . . . mask?

        It lurched forward again, and Sammy sprang back in alarm, hip slamming into the table. The record skipped for a beat, then settled, and the audio quality improved just enough that Sammy can now make it out better than before. And what he heard was . . . was an old tune he’d worked on long ago. One of his favorites back then, one that still had a special place in his heart. He’d even managed to convince Joey to let him keep the name he’d come up with for it; ‘Sammy Jam’.

 _It’s just a dream,_ Sammy kept trying to tell himself, inching back. But his thudding heart and sweating palms made it hard to listen to reason, especially with that thing just . . . _watching_ him.

        The thing reached out, trembling, searching, _wanting_ something that Sammy has not the slightest desire in finding out. And it still sounded like him. _How did it sound like him?!_

        “Is this a test? A-a punishment? Why has He sent you to _me_ , to this forsaken sheep?”

 _What the fu-??_ “I-I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but you need to stay the hell away from me.”

        It _doesn’t_ follow that instruction _,_ and Sammy quickly puts the table and the record player between himself and this demented thing that keeps talking with his . . . _his_ voice, “How can you not know? Our Lord, our Master, the one who’s taken these halls for His own? The Ink Demon himself!”

       The record skipped again, and Sammy stared, truly befuddled as well as unsettled. Not only did it sound like him, it apparently was a few cards short of a deck as well! If this was all just an unpleasant dream, he would _really_ like to wake up now!

       “. . . _what?_ ”

       But now it’s laughing. It starts soft at first, but it grew louder and louder with every second that passed. At least, Sammy think’s it’s laughing, but its much more hollow and high and strained than a real a laugh would ever be, and sounding instead very, very, _very_ close to _tears_ , “He was supposed to set us free . . . He was supposed to set _me_ free . . .”

       Sammy began to inch back to the door, more than a little unnerved now-maybe, privately, even a little frightened-and wanting to be _anywhere_ other than here. Though where too, he can’t even fathom, because its clear he’s nowhere he’s been before. Nowhere he’s supposed to be. He tried pinching himself, but no dice. He’s not waking up anytime soon, it looked like . . .

       The record was continuously skipping now, right over the same beat, again and again.

      “What more could I do? What more could He ask of me?!” The thing’s flailing around now, oily hands grasping at a black, tarry skull as it’s screaming continues to mount.

       Sammy’s back hit the door, and his hand scrambled for the knob, feeling like the room was growing darker and colder the longer he was there. He needed to get out-!

      “I sacrificed! I gave Him _everything! Everything!_ Answer me, My Lord! What more do you want!?” it threw its arms into the air, pleading, desperate, and wholly unhinged, “ _Answer me, please!_ ”

       Sammy found the knob, its surface feeling slick as he turned it sharply and pulled the door open, flinging himself out into the open and breaking into a sprint.

       Only to slam face-first into something soft and cold and very, very wet.

       Staggering back, the first thing Sammy saw was an expanse of rising blackness that ran like water, ink splattering the ground in waves. Then his eyes travel up, up, to find a face leering down at him, a face that looks both familiar and utterly alien all in the same breath. A face that barely has room for the huge, pearlescent, malevolent smile that left him shocked and a little afraid, barely able to believe what he is seeing. _Who_ he is seeing.

       “Ben-,”

       Sammy doesn’t even finish before a large hand suddenly grabbed him by the throat, cutting out his words and lifting him off the ground as if he were no more than an empty bag. His feet swing below him as they attempt to find purchase while his hands grasp at the cold fingers around his neck, choking, eyes blowing wide in panic. H-he couldn’t breathe! He couldn’t-!

       ‘Bendy’, if that was who this even was, turned suddenly, and pain hits him hard as he’s suddenly and forcefully slammed against the opposite wall, the malevolent hand keeping him pinned there. His vision is now full of stars, teetering on passing out, and he’s in more pain than he ever thought possible despite the cold, trickling ink he felt pooling over his shoulders, but Sammy can see that the thing holding him never loses its wicked smile. Sammy thinks it might be enjoying this.

        He’s aware of a distant wailing, or crying, or something that sounds like his own voice, but it can’t be, he can’t even _breathe_. Vainly, he tried to kick at the thing, beating a hand against the arm that held him, but the creature doesn’t even flinch, let alone release the terrible, crushing pressure it’s forcing on his throat. There’s a terrible, writhing knot that’s formed in his stomach, an amalgamation of anger, confusion, and terror that spurs his flailing fists, even though it does nothing to the entity holding him. With every second that ticked by, his body grew colder, weaker, harder to control, but his neck was _scorching_ hot, like a ring of fire had been placed there and left to burn. It _hurt_ . . .

 _This is a dream . . . it_ _shouldn’t hurt . . ._

       Darkness is starting to swim in the corners of his vision, growing deeper with every passing moment, and with a sudden spike of raw terror, Sammy is suddenly acutely aware that he is _dying_. This thing is _killing_ him, and he can barely even put up a fight anymore, try as he might.

 _Please,_ please _wake up! Somebody wake me up!_

           Sammy tried to open his mouth, to speak, hell, maybe even plead, but nothing comes out. He can’t make a sound, let alone demand why this thing, why _Bendy_ , is trying to kill him. It leaned closer anyway, it’s awful smile right in front of his face, and maybe while on the cusp of death he’s hallucinating, because he thought he could just barely make out a dark, evil whisper in his ear, “Sheep, sheep, sheep, **_it’s time for sleep . . ._** ”

_I’m supposed to already be asleep! This can’t be real! This can’t be happening!_

          But his grasping fingers start to slip away, losing their grip, and he’s too weak to try again. Slowly, everything starts to grow far away. The pain, the fear, the screaming, everything . . .

_Plea se w ak e m e u p . . ._

          Right before his sight failed him completely, something bright bloomed across his face, and he felt a splash of sudden warmth that might feel warmer if everything didn’t feel numb.

           And then the hand is gone and he’s hitting the ground beneath his feet, crumpling into a barely conscious ball. But once he does hit the floor and that first trickle of oxygen makes it to his lungs, Sammy coughed and sputtered and sucked in lungfuls of air. Feeling slowly returned, and the pain did too, everything hurting, his back, his chest, his neck, only barely aware of the roaring and hissing that grew more and more distant until he can’t hear it at all. A rational part of his mind informed him that he needed to run, to get away, but his limbs barely move to obey the sluggish command.

          A hand appeared in his shoulder then, rolling him onto his back, and he managed to pry his stinging eyes open long enough to see three blurry shapes above his head. They’re speaking, but it sounded muffled, muted, like he’s hearing it through water. One leaned down, close enough that he can just make out the face, a face that’s full of worry. A _familiar_ face.

          Henry. Its _Henry._ Sammy laughed deliriously, and doesn’t think he’s ever felt more relieved in his life.

          _It_ is _just a dream then, right?_

          He doesn’t feel more beyond that, though, for darkness took him mere moments after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he sees you


	5. Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beware of the things that go bump in the night. You won't get warned twice.

          Hours.

          It had been hours, long enough for the sun to set and the moon to rise.

          And nobody could make heads or tails of where Sammy had gone.

          Even when, in desperation, several of them had gone back into the studio with the ink and all to search, it had turned up nothing.

          Just . . . _poof_. Like he’d gone up in smoke. He wasn’t in the studio, he wasn’t at home, he wasn’t at his favorite bar . . . he just wasn’t _anywhere_.

          And Susie was just about at her wits end.

          Well, she supposed that wasn’t fair . . . a lot of people were. Henry had looked like he had been going grayer with every hour, Bendy could not stop dripping, and poor Alice and Boris were beside themselves with worry. Not to mention the rest of her coworkers. Many had gone up in arms against Joey thinking he’d done something again, and while that may be at least partially true, the guilt on her manager’s face stopped her from joining in. Really, all she wanted to do was fix this problem now, and get Sammy home. Wherever he was . . .

          But that had been a while ago, and now she’s home with a tired Alice in tow. Indeed, most everyone was at home, away from the nonsense and exhausted after their fruitless search. She was exhausted too, but Susie felt that sleep was going to be elusive tonight.

          From one problem to the next . . . gosh, just what was going on?

          “Susie . . .?”

          The woman turned around to face Alice, who was hanging her coat up on the rack beside the door, “Yes, Alice?”

          The angel is downcast, and Susie felt her heart pang. The poor thing had already had one rough night, and now it seemed she’d have to go through another.

          “. . . you don’t think what Wally said is true, right?” Alice asked her, and Susie felt a tiny little splinter of ire rising. Oh, sometimes that janitor just didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.

          “Absolutely not!” Susie said with certainty, “Sammy wouldn’t just leave the job without saying anything to anyone! Besides, he might get a little annoyed from time to time, but he does like working with us! He’s been doing it for years, and that speaks louder than his rants do! And we should know! His rants are pre-tty loud.”

          Norman and several others had backed her on that, and she was absolutely positive she was correct. For all his blustering, she knew Sammy well enough to know he wouldn’t dream of leaving anymore, and while he would sooner chew his own tongue off than admit it, he liked his coworkers too. Toons, occult nonsense and all.

          “But . . . where is he, then?”

          Susie winced a little, pulling off her own coat to give her something to do, “. . . I don’t know, Alice. But we’ll find him.”

          She hoped she sounded convincing, for Alice’s sake. Poor angel didn’t need doubt on top of all these other troubles that had been plaguing them of late.

          Getting ready for bed was a mostly quite affair, a far cry from what it usually was whenever Alice needed to spend the night. Normally, they’d be talking, gossiping, telling each other jokes . . . but, well, conversation always falls a little flat when you’re worried about another person’s wellbeing.

          And worrying and worrying and _worrying_. . .

          Susie’s hand faltered as she brushed her hair out, feeling her eyes sting, and she furiously wiped at them with an irritated huff.

          Ugh, this would not do, not at all! If she worked herself into a fit, what would that do to Alice? She had to be strong right now, even if the anxiety churning in her gut made her mind race.

          Susie stepped out of her bathroom to look to the clock, finding the arms read after midnight. Well, it certainly was late, but . . . that hasn’t stopped her before when things were rough.

          Susie soon found herself in her kitchen, rummaging around in one of the cabinets close to the floor. Pushing aside a bag of oatmeal, the woman smiled and whispered victoriously as she pulled out what she was seeking; a single bottle of whiskey.

          Now, Susie is by no means a heavy drinker by any stretch of the imagination. But when times are desperate, she’s exhausted, and really just wants to dull her feelings down a bit, she found that a little alcohol went a long way.

          So, pulling out her favorite little shot glass, she poured a modest amount and sat herself down at the table to enjoy it, hoping it would, at the very least, take the edge off.

          “Susie?”

          Susie looked over the rim of her glass to the archway of her kitchen, where Alice was now standing dressed in pajamas she had loaned her for the night. The angel glanced at the chair opposite the woman with questioning eyes, and Susie smiled as she set her glass down, patting her other hand on the table invitingly, “Since when were you a stranger, Alice? Come on, sit down.”

          Alice smiled a little as she took a seat, but her fidgeting was an uncommon sight, “Oh, I’ve just . . . you’ve never drunken, _that_ , before when I’d visit. I didn’t know if . . . you wanted to be alone for a bit.”

          Susie lightly twirled the glass in her hand, watching the fragmentary reflections of the alcohol within cast shadows along the wood, “True enough, I guess. But I think being alone right now wouldn’t be the best thing for either of us . . .”

          “Yeah . . .” Alice glanced around the kitchen before giving Susie a slight smile, asking off-handedly in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, “Don’t suppose you have any ink around here, do you? I could use a good yellow . . . or maybe a little blue . . .”

          Susie laughed slightly, though it came out soft and short, “Yeah, drank the last of it myself, Al. Sorry.”

          The angel laughed a little herself, a touch more openly than before, both knowing full well Susie didn’t have any ink here ever on account of what happened New Years of 1967. The bed frame had been unsalvageable. But it was a good memory still, “Of course! Silly me!”

          Susie herself took another small sip of her drink, the burn going down smooth. Idly, she began to turn conversation to lighter and more pleasant topics. Work mishaps, party blunders, singing songs together . . . anything that took both of their minds off of today. Alice happily indulged it, recounting the time when Bendy had once pranked the entire staff all throughout the days leading up to April Fools, while hinting at doing something BIG for Aprils Fools, and then deliberately _not_ doing anything on Aprils Fools. He’d enjoyed the irony, and the eggshells everyone had walked on that entire day had been hilarious to the demon. Hilarious to her, too.

          “-everyone was so mad after that!” Alice said with a fond laugh, “Henry had to cool everybody down for _days_ , it felt like, and Sammy-!”

          She stopped talking, the mood taking a very steep dive. Susie set her now empty glass down, face falling into a frown. There wasn’t a clock in here, but it must have been close to one now.

          But she still didn’t feel like sleeping.

          “He . . . _is_ okay, right?” Alice finally asked, tracing her fingers along the wood grain of Susie’s table.

          “He has to be,” Susie said immediately, fighting down her own demons whispering doubts into her ears, “He’s _Sammy_. He’d fist-fight the Grim Reaper himself before he let him take him anywhere.”

          Alice smiled ruefully, “Yeah, probably.”

          Silence fell again, still heavy, still uncomfortable, and Susie thought of how best to move this conversation to better topics. Then, like gold, she struck it. A topic she’d been meaning to bring up for ages, but never got around to doing.

          “Sooo . . .” she started, tapping a finger against the glass in her hands, “Have you met Allison yet?”

          The angel’s face fell into a sharp frown, lips pursing into an almost pout as her hands tightened together on the table, a reaction that was . . . _surprising_ . . . to say the very least.

          “I’ll . . . take that as a yes?”

          “I’ve . . . met. She’s in the recording booth a lot . . .” was Alice’s vague reply.

          Susie pursed her lips. Hm, it would seem this . . . wasn’t going to go the way she hoped it would. It wasn’t Allison’s fault, she was sure . . . the girl was very sweet, and had a talent for voice work and songs. Right now, she was where Susie herself at started, working with moving furniture and animals. But she had a feeling in her gut that one day the girl was going to rise up to the top. Just a feeling of course . . . but Susie had learned to trust her feelings in the past.

          One day . . . such a person might make a good replacement for an angel whose previous voice could no longer sing.

          It seemed Alice had caught on to that, too. And didn’t like it.

          “Alice . . .”

          “Stop, Susie, I know what you’re going to say. ‘I should talk to her, its good to get to know your coworkers, we’d be great friends’, I know,” there’s petulance in Alice’s posture as the angel crossed her arms, looking at some point to the left of her with narrowed eyes, “I just don’t want to.”

          “Well . . . why’s that? She hasn’t done anything to you, has she?” Susie asked, like she didn’t already know the source of the angel’s frustration.

          “No, but . . . listen, can we talk about something else? Like the time Wally got stuck in the ventilation shaft? Or when Joey broke all the windows with the new sound equipment?” Alice asked, tone practically pleading.

          Susie sighed. She’d only meant to bring it up to see if that ice had cracked yet, but . . . guess it was still several years too early for Alice.

          “Alright,” Susie agreed, placing a hand over the angel’s clasped ones, “We’ll talk about something else.”

          Alice’s shoulder sagged, and she looked very relieved as she softly replied, “Thank you. I . . . know I should talk to her. Just . . . not yet.”

          Susie nodded, “Fair enough. But let me just say one thing . . .”

          Alice looked at her, face pinching slightly with faint trepidation. But Susie only gave her a smile and a bright little wink, “I’ve still got at least another decade in me. But personally, I’m aiming for another three.~”

          Alice’s eyes widened a little. Then, slowly, she gave her own smile in return, face brightening with relief and gratitude, “I’m . . . glad to hear that, Susie. But just remember, I’ll hold you to that!”

          “Understood, ma’am. You know me, though, I hate going back on my word,” Susie replied, grinning.

          “Good. Then I won’t have to worry,” Alice’s words softened as she spoke, until anything she might have said after was swallowed by a heavy yawn. When it ended, she rubbed at her eyes, sniffing, “What time is it?”

          “Late, if I had to hazard a guess,” Susie said, glancing at the window she could see through the archway. It was still very dark outside, a small halo of light blooming over the slightly dusty window pane from the distant street lamp that lit the corner of her street, “Well past our bed time, I’m sure.”

          “Yeah, you’re right . . .” Alice smothered another yawn, “But I still don’t really feel like sleeping.”

          “Yeah . . .” Susie pondered over what they could do, tapping her fingers against the table, “I guess we could crack open a few books. Maybe see if the radio has any channels on.”

          “This late at night?” Alice asked incredulously.

          Susie shrugged, “We’ll never know unless we try.”

          With that, the two relocated to Susie’s living room. It was a quaint little place, with a singular floral couch her mother had gifted her, an arm-side desk with a radio on it, a lamp, and her only tv. Channels were all but dead this time of night, so she knew there’d be nothing for them there. She did have a few books squared away though, and her radio . . .

          Alice was already grabbing her favorites off the shelf, so Susie took it upon herself to fiddle with the radio. A fuzz of static burst through the speakers as she flicked it on, as if it was protesting having to wake up, a feeling Susie sympathized with. Fiddling with the antennae just to make sure they were in the right spot for a clearer frequency, Susie began to turn the dial, flipping through the different channels she had available. As expected, every one only blared back static to her.

          Susie jumped a little when Alice dropped a stack of books on the desk next to her, the heavy _thud_ shaking the wood frame, “Careful, angel, I only have one of these.”

          Alice gave a nervous smile, “Sorry.”

          “You got your favorites?” Susie asked, but before Alice could answer, the woman leaned forward as the radio suddenly cleared up, the static blipping into something much more tuneful, though still colored by distortion, “Oh, I have something!”

          “You do, somehow,” Alice stared at the radio, surprised. Susie couldn’t blame her, she’s just as surprised as the toon is.

          Susie went back to adjusting the antennae, trying to get a clearer reception to clean out the gritty electric snapping covering the music, when . . . she paused. And listened.

          “Hey, Alice,” Susie started, glancing at the angel, “Does this . . . sound familiar?”

          The angel knocked her heads to the side, brow pinching in confusion, but she leaned in closer to better hear the music. And when she did, her eyes widened, “Hey, this sounds like-!”

          _Bzt-!_

          Both jumped and turned their heads to the tv, to find that, somehow . . . it had turned on. The screen was nothing but static, grey and black and white fritzing together in a jumble of chaos. Beside them, the audio from the radio crackled and snapped, the tune flipping between several different, distorted melodies, every one as familiar as the last.

          You don’t forget music from your very own studio, after all. But Susie knew for a fact that no stations played their music, let alone so late at night. So what was happening?

          As her discomfort and unease mounted, her hand traveling to clutch at Alice’s own, she genuinely wondered if she even wanted to know. But after everything going on with the studio, her nerves were shot and rattled.

          “S-Susie . . . ?” Alice started, clearly frightened as she leaned closer to the woman, all but pressing into her side, “What’s happening?”

          “Um . . .” the woman swallowed nervously, “Something probably not natural.”

          “W-well, how do we fix it?” Alice asked, shaking. Her hands had wrapped around Susie’s, squeezing so tight it actually hurt.

          It was then Susie remembered what Alice had gone through the night before, and how very disturbing this must be for her right now. And, supernatural or not, that realization rallied Susie to action. Taking a breath to steady her nerves, the woman reached over with a quick hand and tried to flick the radio off, only to find it didn’t seem to care if its power was cut, because it kept playing anyway. Huffing shakily, one part irritated, another unsettled, Susie hurried over to the outlets and pulled out every cord she could find. 

          Same thing . . .

          “Okay, do you have any sage or rosemary on you?” Susie asked.

          Alice gave her a _look_ , and Susie inclined her head apologetically in the angel’s direction, “Right, sorry. Demonic ink. Uhm, hm . . .”

          All at once, the tv and radio and lights suddenly turned off, making both girls jump as the room was abruptly plunged into darkness. They stayed perfectly still, instincts urging quiet, because anything more would invite disaster. But nothing jumped out from the dark, and no unnatural noises hissed from within the shadows. Just an eerie stillness after a rather disturbing storm.

          “Is . . . is it over?” Alice asked slowly, not having relinquished her hold of Susie’s hand.

          “I . . . think so,” Susie exhaled, reaching around blindly until her hand brushed against the pole of her lamp. She breathed a sigh of relief as the light flicked on without complaint, shedding the room in a warm glow. Alice relaxed too when the light returned, though Susie can see the angel’s ink trembling uncertainly.

          In an attempt to lighten the mood, Susie said, “Well, that wasn’t how I expected that to go! But I guess the radio’s out of the question.”

          “But . . . why’d it do that?” Alice asked, looking worried, fretful, “You don’t think . . . whatever’s happening at the studio followed us home . . . do you?”

          “Well . . . I don’t know,” Susie pinched herself hard, flinching a little, but taking solace in it too, “But I don’t think either of us are asleep, either! So, this can’t be too bad! Maybe just something like bad feedback.”

          An idea struck Susie then, and she snapped her fingers, “ _Or_ , maybe Joey’s doing something with his book to fix his mistake!”

          That seemed reasonable.

          Alice must have agreed, for she slowly began to relax, “Y- . . . yeah. Probably.”

          The angel sniffed a little, “I wish he’d be a little more considerate . . .”

          Susie huffed a laugh, “Since when has he ever been?”

          Alice nodded in reply, acquiescing that point to Susie. The woman glanced around at her living room. Everything seemed to be in order . . . and both her temporarily possessed electrical appliances were off, so a plus there.

          Then her phone started ringing.

          Both jumped for the third time that night, Alice going as far as to wrap her arms around Susie’s middle in a vice squeeze, making the woman grunt. She didn’t push her away, though, just patted a hand against her back soothingly as the ringing went on.

          Both of them waited on pins-and-needles until it at last stopped, silence once again dominating the small house. But the silence was a little comforting now, and both sagged against each other in relief.

          Until the ringing started again, piercing like a siren’s wail in a desolate city street.

          “Why’s it _ringing?_ ” Alice whispered through her teeth.

          “W-well, maybe Joey’s calling us about the book? Or maybe Henry?” Susie supplied, honestly at a loss. This was _really_ not how she’d been wanting her night to go.

          “But why _now?_ ”

          “Maybe I should answer it.”

          Alice’s jaw dropped, looking (and not for the first time) at Susie like she was crazy, “ _Really_ , Susie? You want to answer the phone after what just happened?!”

          “Well, its not stopping! I might as well!” Susie defended, beginning to make her way to the angry appliance.

          Alice reluctantly followed her, arms still wound tight around the other woman as they both approached. Susie could hear her companion audibly swallow as Susie lifted the phone from its cradle, tentatively putting it to her ear, “H-hello?”

          At first, the only thing she heard was static, an incomplete connection or a frayed wire that made talking impossible. But then, through the messy jumble of crackling nonsense in her ear, she just made out the sound of someone grunting and mumbling, sounding frustrated and . . . scared?

          “Hello? Who is this?” she tried again, a little louder and more forcefully. If this was just a prank call, she swore to God, she’d find whoever was responsible and keelhaul them.

          There’s a minute of silence, and suddenly the sound of someone frantically scrambling with the phone on the other end assaulted her ears. She winced, about to pull away . . . when the voice that broke through the static made her stop dead.

          “Susie?! Susie, is that you?!”

          The voice is distorted behind a wall of static garbage, half of the words nearly lost in the white noise bridging the two of them. But she knew that voice. It was impossible for her not to.

          “Sammy?! Oh my god, _Sammy?!_ ”

          Alice’s grip on her waist tightened tenfold, leaning in, and Susie thought her heart might _explode_ from the sheer relief she felt. Sammy was on the other end! He was alright, and she really could have _cried_ over it, if crying didn’t mean Sammy’s endless teasing in the future.

          On the other end of the line, a sound reached her ears, a cross between a gasp and a . . . a sob?

          Out of nowhere, Sammy began rambling, and it felt like he wasn’t talking to her at all, “I-is this . . . is this even happening? H-how am I talking to you? This-this just another fucking trick, isn’t it, i-it has to be, _it has to be-!_ ”

          That’s when she heard a crack, but it wasn’t the static of the telephone messing with the call’s clarity. It was a voice crack. It was . . . Sammy.

          He was still going on, but she barely understood him, and she noticed then that whatever was happening, whatever was going on, the man was more than just frazzled. He sounded . . . scared. No, beyond even that. He was _terrified._

          Sammy could work himself into a fit over a lot of things, but _terror_ was not one of them, not like this. Which just meant that something was _wrong._ Terribly, horribly wrong.

          “Sammy? Sammy, its okay! J-just tell me where you are, okay, and I’ll come get you, I-I’ll _get you!_ ” Susie said, all but shouting into the receiver, hoping it would get across to the panicking man on the other side.

          And . . . it seemed liked it worked. The frantic babbling from before halted, replaced by hard, heavy breathing. It still settled wrong on her shoulders, unnerving and worrying all at the same time. But right as she was about to ask him if he was alright . . . there was a chuckle.

          Its not a happy one.

          “Y-you can’t. You can’t just come _get me_ , I’m-,”

          “What are you talking about? Sammy, just, calm down, okay. I need you to tell me where to go,” Susie said, putting on her best comforting voice, a voice that always managed to calm their music director down even in his worst of moods.

          “No, you don’t understand, Susie! I’m not- . . . I-it’s like, I’m in the studio, but it’s not _our_ studio!”

          Susie’s brow furrowed, “What? Sammy, what are you-?”

          “You _have_ to get Joey to fix this! It’s not a dream, Susie, whatever this is, it’s _not a dream!_ ”

          “Sammy-?”

          Just then, another sound breached through the call, one that is neither static nor Sammy. Its something else. Something that growled and shrieked, a cry that sent a mortal shiver down her spine.

          “Oh _shit-!_ ”

          There’s the sound of the phone thudding harshly against wood, Sammy’s voice abruptly disappearing. Alarmed, Susie shouted, “Sammy? _Sammy?!_ ”

          Another scuffle, a heavy splash, thudding, a second terrible shriek . . . and Susie jumped at the sound of something hard slamming into the other phone, a mad crackle of static and sound as the other end of the line was suddenly and brutally cut out.

          _Beep. Beep. Beep._

          Susie’s hand is on her mouth, clasped so tight she could feel her fingernails leaving marks. Beside her, Alice was shivering, staring up at her with wide eyes, “S-Susie . . . what happened?”

          She didn’t know. She didn’t understand any of what Sammy was trying to tell her. But one thing she knew for certain; whatever had happened, he _desperately_ needed help.

          So, slamming her fingers into the dial pad, she began to furiously wind in a number.

          She needed to call Joey.

          She needed to call _everyone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cracks are getting a little deeper.


	6. The Other Side of the Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a scary place indeed. 
> 
> If only he could wake up.

         Consciousness returned slowly, so blurry and inconsistent that for several moments Sammy didn’t even register he had been unconscious. Just waking up from a simple slumber, to begin another day in the place many affectionately dubbed Hell’s Studio.

          It’s not until the bone-deep pain in his back and neck hit him that memory surfaced; of warped corridors, black ink, and a twisted, stained smile as a terrible pressure squeezed the life from his very lungs.

          As if in response to that phantom vice, Sammy gasped, only to cough as the pain in his throat ignited tenfold, lungs heaving as if the very act of breathing was an Olympic trail.

          He subconsciously rolled onto his side, arms curling around his stomach as he fought to control his breaths and keep from vomiting. God, his neck _hurt_ , feeling bruised and swollen, and his back was no better off, like a herd of horses and trampled over him in his sleep _. . ._

          His eyes felt like they were glued shut with wax, hard to open, and his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. It was not a pleasant sensation. And all the while, his mind was racing, trying to set apart reality and dreams, what had really happened and what was too _impossible_ to be real. The problem was, he was having a very hard time figuring out which was which.

          Suddenly, there was a pressure on his shoulder, heavy but warm, and a voice in his ear, calming and _real_ and a fixture Sammy could focus on, “Hey, easy, its okay now. You’re okay. Just take some deep breaths.”

          That voice . . .

          “Henry-?” Sammy started, only to cough hoarsely into his hand. God, he sounded like shit. What had _happened?_

          There was a pause, almost like an uncertain one, before the hand on his shoulder gave him a slight pat, “Yeah, well . . . guess that’s not completely wrong . . .”

          The fuck did that mean?

          Shaking his head to banish the blurriness that had settled over his mind, Sammy brought a hand up and furiously rubbed at his eyes, forcing them open to finally get his bearings on where he was.

          Everything was fuzzy at first, but as everything came back into focus, it was to find he was not in any room he was familiar with. It _looked_ like an office space, usually for one of those pompous execs that thought they ran the studio, but it looked . . . _old._ Not used in a long time at the very least, that was for sure. Also dark. Were the lights even on?

          Any attention he might have spared for it was tossed out the window when something moved next to him, a shadow leaning back out of view. Maybe it’s the vestiges of his dreams making him jumpy, but his eyes snapped to it with a lot more alarm than he would normally deign to give something.

          But then he saw who it was, and he relaxed, sinking into the hard, lumpy thing he’s laying on as relief swept through him. And beside him, Henry leaned back into the chair he’s sitting in, the wood creaking with age as the animator gave him a strangely awkward smile, “Hey. Glad to see you’re awake.”

          Sammy didn’t respond immediately, still coming to grips with relief. Thank god . . . if Henry was here, then that meant everything really _had_ been just a dream. A . . . fairly terrible, awful dream. But it was over, he was awake, and he can put this nonsense behind him. Right after he got done with _Joey_ . . . Wally was going to have a field day with _that_ mess. He shifted a little where he lay, cringing a little at the feel of the aches over his body. Sure _felt_ like it hadn’t just been a dream . . .

          Placing his right hand over his eyes, he finally asked, voice rough with an odd mix of sleep and pain, “So, what happened, exactly?”

          Now, normally Henry was very quick with explanations. Came with the territory of keeping everybody under control. But now, Henry was strangely silent, shifting in his seat for long enough that Sammy finally dropped his hand, knocking a confused glance the man’s way, “Henry?”

          Through the dim shadows of the dark room, Sammy can see the gleam of the other’s eyes as he finally looked his way, fingers tapping almost nervously against his knee before finally saying, “What do you remember?”

          Well, that’s a question, all right. But, deciding to indulge Henry for a bit, Sammy’s gaze travelled back to the ceiling, thinking back, “I . . . remember the pipes bursting again. Bit before that, the whole studio shook. I’m guessing _Joey_ had something to do with that?”

          There was a sharp inhale, like Henry was suddenly in pain, and Sammy looked back at him, a little alarmed. There’s a grimace on the animator’s face, drawn with . . . aggravation? Frustration?

          No way, this was Henry. Sure, he got annoyed from time to time, but-

         “I’m guessing he did, yeah,” Henry said, cutting Sammy from his thoughts. His tone is . . . much more curt than Sammy had ever heard it before. Irritated, even, grinding the words out through gritted teeth. Like he was . . . _angry._

          . . . holy shit, _what_ had Joey done to make _Henry_ mad?

         “What the fuck did he do?” Sammy said, a little concerned now, moving to sit up despite his muscles protests, “If _you’re_ angry, it’s gotta be bad.”

          He went to lift his left hand up, to grip the wall as support . . . only to feel something cold and unbending tighten against wrist when he raised no higher than three inches from the cot he was on. Puzzled, Sammy looked down, only to have his confusion deepen when he saw the silver gleam of a chain around his wrist, tied tightly to the bed frame beneath him. There was even a fucking _padlock_ on it, “What the fu- . . . _why_ is this here?!”

          Henry grimaced, looking apologetic, “Sorry. Tom’s caveat to keeping you here. I tried to talk him out of it, but . . .”

          Sammy turned to stare at him, for once genuinely not knowing who that was, “What? Who the hell is Tom?”

          “Its . . .” Henry sighed suddenly, tilting his head down to rub at his eyes. And for a second, leaning into a brighter patch of light that illuminated him . . . revealing a patchwork of cuts and bruises along his arms and hands and a deep, dark bruise around his eye, like he’d been in some kind of nasty brawl. It’s immediately concerning.

          “And what the hell happened to _you?”_ Sammy asked, feeling more and more confused by the second. What the fuck had happened while he’d been asleep? “Henry, _what_ is going on?”

          “. . . A lot. And I think . . . I think everything just got a lot more complicated than it was before,” the other man finally said, voice soft and touched with worry.

          “Uh, alright?” Sammy said, not sure what to make of that. He fiddled with the chain on his wrist, trying to pry the bulky thing off, but even his slim fingers wouldn’t fit between the links, “Hey, mind takin’ this stupid thing off? I need to have a few words with Joey. And this _Tom.”_

          “I . . .” before Henry could finish, however, the door to the office they were in suddenly swung open, and two figures walked inside. Two figures who were both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

          “I think we’re in the clear here, for now. None of the-,” the one who was speaking looked like a young, dark-haired woman at first glance . . . but look any harder, you’d see some big differences. Like how her proportions were just a little . . . _off_ from a normal person’s, or how her eyes shone a bright shade of gold, or how on her head a pair of small, cracked horns sprouted. The figure she cut was so familiar, Sammy almost said ‘Alice’ . . . but at the same, she was so far removed from the toon he knew it was uncanny. Unsettling, even. And when she saw him, up and about, she stopped walking completely, her had twitching to her side where . . . was that sword?!

          “He’s awake,” she said, glancing at Henry before shifting back to Sammy with cat-like intensity, the supernatural yellow of her eyes lending credence to that image.

          Behind her, the other figure stepped forward, a much more recognizable figure at first glance. He looked like Boris! But . . . there were differences here too. Like how one of his arms was made of metal, and how the toon’s face was knitted into a deep, distrustful _glare_ , a look that was so unnatural on the kindly Boris’ face it threw Sammy for a genuine loop. Seeing the director look his way, the toon did another not-Boris thing . . . he _growled._ And began to threateningly smack the wrench he was carrying into his open palm.

          The weird not-Alice looked at the toon, frowning, “Tom, please. He can’t do anything to us.”

          Still staring, Sammy pointed at the pair, yelling, “Who the _hell_ are you?”

          Immediately, the woman shushed him, glancing at the door before she looked back at him, “Don’t. Yell. We’re safe enough here, but who knows how long that’ll last.”

          “W-what? Henry, what the hell is going on? Who are these people?! I swear, if this is Joey’s fault, I’ll-!” a hand suddenly clamped tight over his mouth, and that alone was enough to startle him into silence, because who was brave enough to do that to _him._

           Then, Henry spoke, very low and very seriously, “You _have_ to be quieter, Sammy. You’ll get us _killed_ if you’re too loud.”

          Sammy’s eyes widened as Henry pulled his hand away, staring. If literally anyone else had tried to say some crap like that to him, he’d dismiss them out of principle. But this was _Henry._ And Henry was the absolute _last_ sort to make jokes like that.

          “What?” Sammy started, too befuddled to even be annoyed.

          “It’s dangerous here. And you never know what might be listening,” Not-Alice ‘explained’.

          He stared at her, “. . . _what?”_

          Henry stepped in then, looking weary, “Sammy, you said you remembered the pipes bursting. What about after that?”

          After that?

          Sammy thought, fighting down the shiver that came with the memories. But no, they weren’t memories, they were just dreams. Just dreams.

          “Um . . .” he started, wincing at the way his neck pinged in pain, “I remember, walking through the studio. ‘Cept everything was a mess, like Wally and the rest skipped out on their jobs for a few weeks. Then . . .”

          He suddenly sighed, feeling annoyed for a reason he couldn’t actually comprehend, “Look, that part was just a dream, Henry, and a pretty stupid one at that. Could you just tell me what’s going on?”

          The other man stared at him, lips pursed, thoughtful.

  
          Then, “. . . you were attacked.”

          Sammy started a little. How did Henry know that . . .?

          The animator was continuing on, ignoring Sammy’s wide-eyed stare, “By a monster, right? A monster that looked like Bendy. After running into someone that had your voice.”

          “H-how . . . is this a joke? This a joke, isn’t it. Did Franks set you up to this?” Sammy demanded, feeling his ire rising. He had _thought_ Henry was above this sort of juvenile idiocy, yet here he was, stringing him along like Sammy was just some gullible sap.

          _Must have talked in my sleep . . ._ he thought, annoyed with himself for it.

          “I . . . really wish that was the case,” Henry replied, looking at his feet, “But it’s not.”

          He said it with such _sincerity._ Like he wasn’t lying. Except, he _was_ lying, right? W-what else could he be doing? Because, there was no way what he had dreamed had been real!

          “Henry . . . if this were literally anyone else, I’d _hit_ you,” Sammy finally said, “And you’re _very_ lucky you’re not. So can you _please_ just drop the act.”

          “He’s not acting, Sammy,” Not-Alice said, taking a step forward, “He’s telling the truth. And _you’re_ very lucky he insisted on helping you, otherwise you’d be dead right now.”

          “Okay, _who_ are you?!” he snapped, fed up with this nonsense and also not approving of these two weirdos that had seemingly come from nowhere just to mess with him further, “Did someone hire you to do this, or did Joey mess with natural order of things again?!”

          Not-Alice shared a glance with her glaring toon companion before turning back to him, looking almost wondering, “You . . . really don’t know who we are, do you?”

          He looked at her, confused beyond measure and a little irritated to boot, but managing to keep his voice to an annoyed hiss, “Wha- _no!_ Of course I don’t know you! I mean, you _look_ like Alice and Boris, but you’re _clearly_ not!”

          “Hm, well that’s a first,” Not-Alice hummed, crossing her arms, “You sound like Sammy, but you’re clearly not like the one we know.”

          Okay, _what?_

          “The hell does that mean?” he demanded, “Last I checked, I was the only Sammy in this damn studio!”

          “In _your_ studio.”

          Sammy looked again at Henry, brow furrowing at the man’s quiet, barely comprehensible mumble. The other man rubbed his palms together, not quite meeting Sammy’s gaze, “Sammy, this might sound like a weird question, but tell me . . . what’s your studio like?”

          Sammy’s eyebrow rose up at that, perplexed, “Okay, that _is_ a weird question. You _work_ at the studio, you should know.”

          “Ah,” Henry mumbled, a very strange look crossing his haggard face, a look like regret, sadness, and anger all in the same breath, “And . . . how long have I worked there?”

          And the other eyebrow was up now too, “What? Did you hit your head or something? Or, I don’t know, inhale one of Joey’s bad incense sticks?”

          “Just answer. Please.”

          Sammy stared at him for second, spared a quick glance to the other two occupants who were standing beside them, then looked back. An uncomfortable knot was forming in his stomach again, not for the first time wishing all of them would just drop whatever prank they were pulling. But . . . at the same time, Henry looked very serious, more so than Sammy had ever seen him. For an act . . . he was doing a hell of a job . . . doubly impressive for a man who normally couldn’t act to save his life.

          “. . . a little over thirty years. Before I showed up,” Sammy finally replied, doing his best to swing his legs over the side of the cot despite the stupid chain around his wrist. _Why_ was it there?

          Henry nodded slowly, _very_ slowly, his eyes misting over, and Sammy got the feeling that the other man was looking at something far, far away, “I see. Is it still busy? Still . . . producing?”

          “Yes? As much as it can despite all the idiots running around, at least,” Sammy said, searching the other man’s face for any sign of treachery, any clue to give away the joke for what it was.

          But Henry’s face only grew more somber, more sad . . . like every word Sammy spoke was driving a nail into his heart for a reason he couldn’t fathom. Beside him, Not-Alice shifted, her own face pinching with something like melancholy as she watched, and her canine friend, while still looking unfriendly, spared the woman a concerned glance.

          Then, Henry asked, “Is everyone ali- . . . alright?”

          Sammy didn’t know how much longer he could indulge in this, but the way Henry asked that question . . . it made a sudden shiver go up his spine, and he didn’t quite know why.

          “Last time I was awake, they were. You’d know better than me, at this point,” Sammy frowned, a flicker of irritation rising, “Although, _Joey_ sure won’t be by the time I get my hands on him.”

          A sudden scoff distracted him, and Sammy looked at Henry in nothing short of shock when he realized it had come from _him._ Unbothered by his look, Henry carried on, face significantly darker than it had been a moment before, grumbling, “Of course it’s Joey . . .”

          Still stunned, Sammy finally managed to speak, “Henry, what did he _do_ this time? And could you please drop the doom-and-gloom act?”

“It’s not an act, Sammy!” the snappish reply completely threw Sammy, who stared at Henry with wide eyes. The man seemed to realize his own aggravation mere seconds afterwards, for he suddenly sighed, tension leaving his body as he ran a hand over his bruised face, “Sammy, I . . . I don’t know how this happened, or even really what’s going on, so I can’t give you an explanation that would help, but I . . . I don’t think this is the studio you think it is. Just like . . .”

          Henry finally looked at him, lips turned into a small, sad frown, “Just like I don’t believe I’m the Henry you think I am.”

          Sammy blinked. Stared. A sort of nervous silence fell over the three in front of him, like they were waiting to see how he reacted, even as Sammy’s mind ran confused circles around Henry’s words.

          Then, it struck him like lightning.

          Pressing his fingers to his temples, Sammy leaned forward and mumbled, “Oh my god . . .”

          Henry’s frown deepened, reaching out a hand as if to comfort him, “Sammy, I know this is probably a lot to take in, but-”

          “I’m still asleep, aren’t I?”

          “W-wha-?”

          “Ugh, _damn it_ , I thought it was over!” Sammy carried on, angry and more than a little upset. But still dreaming was the only conclusion here, wasn’t it, because why else are there two strange ‘toons’ who looked like they’d just gotten off the set of some adventure film here while Henry sat next to him trying to convince him that all of this was somehow real? Not to mention all of them being _wildly_ out-of-character?

          He continued on like that, grousing under his breath and internally debating if it was too late to quit his job, when a shadow suddenly fell across him. He looked up, a little startled to find the Not-Alice standing in front of him, her lips pursed as she stared him down, eyes narrowed in contemplation.

          Then, completely unprompted, she reached out and pinched his cheek. _Hard._

          “Ow, OW, what the _hell,_ lady-?!” he shouted, leaning away from her and just barely managing to stop shy of smacking her hand off.

          She let go, frowning, “That hurt, didn’t it?”

          Sammy glared at her, rubbing his check, “Of course that did!”

          “Dreams don’t hurt like that, do they,” Not-Alice said, and her words are so simple, so state-of-fact . . . but Sammy felt his heart thud just little harder than normal.

          Not-Alice continued, wrapping a hand around her elbow as she spoke, “I’ve had dreams, too, sometimes. And, sometimes they’re scary ones. But even when I’m in danger in those dreams, as soon as I wake up, its over. I’ve never been injured in one.”

          Her yellow eyes, piercing yet somehow strangely soft as well, lingered at Sammy’s neck, “And . . . I’ve definitely never almost died in one, either.”

          Sammy’s hand subconsciously rose to his throat, wincing a little at the tender pain the touch brought. But . . . h-he must have just banged it rolling around, or gotten it tangled in bed sheets or something, because . . . because monsters like that weren’t real. It was just a figment inside his head. His _imagination_. It couldn’t be _anything else . . ._

          “You remember what happened,” she said, watching him closely, “You do. And pretending that its not real will just put you in danger.”

          “But _how_ could that be real?! How can _any_ of that be _real?!”_ he demanded, and his tone comes out angry, but inside his head is reeling back to before he woke up. To empty, broken halls and a monster with his voice and a white crooked smile as everything went _dark . . ._

          A hand appeared on his shoulder then, and he jerked his gaze to Henry. Henry, who just looked tired and worn out in a way Sammy had never seen before, “I wish it wasn’t. Believe me, I do. And like I said, I don’t know _how_ this happened to you, but . . . you’re here. And it’s real. I’m sorry.”

          Sammy can only stare at him, mouth open, because _this_ Henry was acting like he really, truly believed everything he was saying. They _all_ did. Like the studio _was_ just some empty, forlorn husk, like there _was_ some person out there with his name acting like some insane cultist, like there _was_ some monster walking in the halls, like _all_ of it was real, except that’s impossible because it can’t. Be. _Real!_

          _And if he’s not lying and it is all real?_

          It was just one stray thought, but for a single, terrifying second, Sammy forgot how to breathe as _panic_ suddenly bubbled up from within his core, choking him from the inside out. He leaned forward, bracing his only free hand against the bridge of his nose, struggling to smother his own emotions and stop them from blowing over, muttering with increasing pitch, “Okay, okay, okay okayokay, shit, _shit-!”_

          The hand on his shoulder tightened its grip as another rested on his opposite one, and Henry’s voice was low but firm as he spoke, “Hey, hey, deep breaths. In and out. Its safe here for now, there’s no need to panic.”  
          And like that, Sammy was on his feet, wrist straining against the chain around his wrist, yelling, “ _No need to panic?!_ You’re sitting there telling me that I’ve somehow landed in some fucking topsy-turvy world where everything I know is apparently wrong, with no explanation as to how I got here, and even if this is just some fucked up prank you’re pulling, you except me to be _okay with it?!”_

          “Sammy-!” Henry started, standing as well and looking at the door with alarm in his eyes.

          Sammy did not care. Its been some time since he had felt this angry, but he was _so_ tired of this, so tired of being told all the scary things he’d gone through had been real, because they _can’t_ be real, _they can’t!_ “How am I supposed to believe this shit anyway?! Everything was just some fucking _dream_ , and let me tell you something, I’m not falling for it! There’s not some fucking _monster_ out there that looks like Bendy, because Bendy’s just some annoying little gremlin that likes to _prank_ people, not _kill_ them!”

          “Sammy, _stop-!”_ Not-Alice pitched in, her hand going for the pommel of her sword.

          He did not stop, too incensed to care, and so angry that they _still weren’t dropping it_ , “And there is no other ‘Sammy’ in this studio, because _I’m_ the only one in it! And even if there was, there’s no way he’d be some crazy, cult-spewing _SYCOPHANT!_ It’s all _bullshit,_ every bit of it because everything you said can’t be _TRUE!”_

          Any other tirades he had, though, were silenced when a fist suddenly collided with his jaw, hard enough to knock him back into the cot with a _thud!_

          _“Tom!”_

          There was a short, unapologetic growl, but Sammy’s face is hurting way too much to give it much thought. Groaning, Sammy tried to sit despite the stars dancing in his eyes, cradling his cheek with a hand. He could taste something metallic in his mouth, warm and coppery, and he cringed. He never really liked the sight, smell, or taste of blood. It always made him queasy . . .

          A hand gripped his shoulder and hoisted him back upright, Henry’s voice cutting through the dizziness, “You okay?”

          Was he _okay?_ Of course not, that should have been fucking obvious. But the worst of his anger had been quite literally knocked out of him, leaving only an echo of aggravation and a sort of hollow weariness behind. And the pain. A pain that shouldn’t be there, but was anyway, because the universe just fucking _hated_ Sammy Lawrence.

Henry was still standing there, waiting for his answer, but before Sammy could reply a new noise echoed through the walls . . . a strange, gurgling, _unnatural_ noise.

          One that was coming from outside.

          “Oh no . . .” Not-Alice whispered in dread. She looked at Henry, alarmed, “They’re here. We have to leave!”

          Henry gave her a stilted, hasty nod before looking at Tom urgently, “Tom, give me the key.”

          The wolf frowned at the man, knocking his head to the left, a non-verbal refusal. Henry took a step towards him, a tinge of desperation in his voice, “Tom, _please!_ Don’t do what you did to me, not now!”

          Not-Boris flinched a little at that, lips curling into the beginnings of a snarl . . . when it dropped away into defeat. The wolf fished inside one of his belt pockets before pulling out a small, metallic object, one he then extended to Henry. The man took it with a grateful smile, before ducking down to the chain around Sammy’s wrist.

          Outside, the creepy gurgling noises had seemingly doubled, the sounds of uneven footsteps drawing closer.

          “Hurry, Henry! It sounds like there’s a lot of them!” Not-Alice urged, drawing her sword. Inwardly, Sammy was beginning to grow more than little alarmed.

          “I hear them,” the man said, snapping the padlock off quickly. Just like that, the entire thing unwound, and Sammy was very quick to take back his wrist, rubbing the aching skin there as he stood up.

          Not-Boris had made his way over to the door, an axe hanging in his mitt as he braced himself along the side, ready to swing at the drop of a hat. Not-Alice had her hand on the knob, ready to turn it, glancing at Henry with a questioning look in her eye.

          Maybe it’s his nerves, or maybe it’s the recent head trauma, but Sammy almost jumped when he felt something be pressed into his palm without his awareness. He closed his fingers out of reflex, the object feeling cold, sturdy, and smooth against his skin. When he looked, it was to find a piece of a broken pipe in his hand, the tip stained with ink.

          “Keep hold of that,” Henry told him, shifting his grip on his own axe, “We might need to fight our way out if it’s bad.”

          “W-what? _Fight?”_ Sammy echoed, staring at him.

          “Just stick close to us,” Henry said, stepping forward to the door. That was all he said too, leaving Sammy with a myriad of unanswered questions and a whole lot of uncertainty.

          The other man gave Alice a nod, and with a quick swing, she flung the door open and the three charged through. Sammy would say the display was idiotic, except he was seized by the sudden desire to _not_ be left alone right now, and found himself quickly following.

          The corridors beyond . . . struck a very unpleasant chord for Sammy. Because they looked like the halls he’d been walking in in his . . . his dreams.

          _They’re still dreams, aren’t they?_

          He wasn’t given much chance to think about that, though, when a wet, burbling growl snagged his attention. His eyes snapped to the opposite end of the passage, where three shapes were tottering into view . . .

          Three horrible, decidedly inhuman shapes, a Frankenstein mix of mangled limbs and metallic joints, assembled into three vaguely familiar shapes he recalled seeing many a time before in the studio, albeit the differences are like night and day, and he wondered if the title even belonged to these things: the Butcher Gang.

          The sight of them sent an unapologetic thrill of terror through Sammy. Awake or not, they were _horrifying_ to look at, their jerky, almost pained movements disturbingly real, their x’d-out eyes glassy and mindless. His heart thudded in his chest, a very real feeling too, and _now_ . . . now, Sammy was starting to really doubt just how asleep he was.

          He didn’t get to contemplate his conundrum any further, for upon sighting the group, the creatures let loose an unholy chorus of growls and gurgles before beginning to lumber their way.

          _“Run!”_ Henry shouted, and Sammy did not need to be told twice.

          Even as they ran, though, Sammy still had use of his voice, and use it he did, “What the _hell_ are those things?!”

          “Bad news!” Henry replied, rushing around a corner with more speed than he’s ever seen the man move with before.

          Sammy followed, ignoring the way his back ached as he ran. This particular corridor ended in a t-hallway, the two passageways branching off into further unknown territory for him. Not-Alice spared a quick glance between each, then began to lift her finger to the right, “Come on, this wa-!”

          Before she could finish, the ground suddenly lurched severely, nearly sending them all collapsing to the floor. It was only because Sammy was used to this sort of bullshit he kept his balance. Behind them, the unnatural growling was growing steadily closer.

          Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of the unpleasantness, for behind him he heard the sound of rupturing wood and snapping metal, the floor beneath him creaking ominously.

          At the same time, someone canoed into him and sent them both flying to the left, and Sammy felt the air _whoosh_ right out of his lungs as he hit the floor. Gasping, Sammy pushed himself upright, fueled by the adrenaline coursing through his system. When he opened his eyes, it was to find that the place they had just been standing on completely shattered, the planks sinking into the dark swells of an inky pool. Not-Alice and Not-Boris were on the other side of that, and Henry was popping himself back up next to him, looking winded but mostly unhurt.

          “You okay?” Henry’s question was directed at the pair, who were both already scrambling to their feet.

          “We’re alright! Can you jump to us?” Not-Alice said, eyeing the gap between them.

          “I think so!” Henry said, rising as well.

          A chorus of turgid growls sounded off, much closer than before, and Sammy’s eyes shot nervously to the open corridor they had come from, “Well, hurry it up!”

          The dark waves of the ink rippled and rolled, like it was daring the two to jump across. A bubble popped in the mix, like a witch’s cauldron, and ink or not, Sammy very much does not want to fall in it.

          Henry was getting ready to go, muscles bunching in preparation, when a sudden chill swept over them all. A chill that brought a preternatural darkness with it, the walls seeming to ripple like the ink before them, pulsing in time to an unseen heartbeat.

          It was familiar. In _all the wrong ways._

          “Shit!” Henry shouted. He thrust an arm out to the two across from them, yelling, “Al, Tom, _get_ _out of here!”_

          Not-Alice and Not-Boris did not need to be told twice, their expressions rife with sudden fear. Before they bolted, however, Not-Alice shouted back at them, “Meet us at the front office!”

          Henry nodded. Then, turning and grabbing Sammy by the elbow, he proceeded to haul ass down the corridor, right as the ink pool began to shift and rise. And, right before the pair of them ducked around the corner, Sammy thought he caught a glimpse of a white and crooked smile.

          It was a sight that just sent him running faster.

          It felt like they ran forever, and by the time they stopped in some large, near empty room that had several open archways inside it, Sammy’s heart was pounding, and his feet hurt. That was more physical activity than he’d done in a while, and frankly, he was paying for it now.

          Henry was across form him, leaning against the wall, panting, “Well . . . could have gone better . . . but could have gone worse . . .”

          “What . . . the hell . . . is _worse?”_ Sammy asked between breaths, looking at the man.

          With no hint of irony or humor, Henry looked him straight in the eye and said, “We could . . . have died.”

          Sammy snapped his mouth shut, a very uncomfortable shiver going down his spine. Henry said it so matter-of-fact . . . and he wanted to deny it, to say that that couldn’t happen, that you don’t die in dreams!

          _But can I really say that anymore?_

          The answer, he realized, is that he was no longer so certain he could. And that honestly scared him, it scared him _so_ much. But he can’t lose his head here, no matter what. It was pointless, it was a waste of time, he’d look like a moron . . .

          But the thought has wheedled its way inside, and like a stubborn burr, it refused to come out.

          Swallowing, casting a nervous glance to where they had come, Sammy quietly asked, “Henry . . . what the hell happened here?”

          Henry’s face pinched, looking down at his feet, worrying at his bottom lip the same way he always did when he was thinking how best to explain something. And when he finally did speak, it was so quiet Sammy almost missed it, “. . . Joey. Joey Drew happened.”

          “What?” Sammy started, standing straight. Of course, the most logical, straightforward conclusion, the one he himself always came too when something even vaguely supernatural (or even just inconveniencing) happened around him. But . . . but _this_. . .

          “Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that the guy is a coot who doesn’t know how stay away from shit he shouldn’t be messing with,” Sammy admitted, pointing at himself, “But even I can say that this is a little extreme for him!”

          “. . . you said Joey was doing something that made you believe he was the reason you woke up here,” Henry stated, crossing his arms best he could with the axe in his hand, “Sounds like its right up his alley.”

          “ _Dream_ magic, yeah!” Sammy said. He waved a hand at the room around them, “Not . . . whatever _this_ is! I’d honestly sooner believe he just fucked up somewhere over doing this . . . _intentionally_ , because that’s usually what happens with him and his stupid ideas!”

          Sammy honestly could not _believe_ he was even saying this, cause defending Joey Drew’s stupidity was not even the last on the list of things he would do. Normally, _he_ was the one harping on the old man with a vengeance, and Henry was the one doing the defending, even if it was only to placate whoever their boss had happened to piss off that day. So to have it be the other way around was jarring and uncomfortable and very not pleasant.

          Maybe just went to show how . . . twisted everything here was.

          Henry did not look convinced in the slightest, his frown disbelieving, his eyes hard, and his voice very, very, very _cold_ , “You sure? Cause it sounds to me like he didn’t care very much what happened to the people around him while he was messing with his _magic.”_

          It’s not Henry’s words that drove Sammy to silence. No . . . it was the man’s _tone._ It’s deeper, near a _growl_ , colored with anger and rife with dislike, topped by the glare that has slowly formed on the man’s face as the conversation went on. And the look in his eyes . . .

          It’s so disturbingly close to _hatred_ that Sammy truly was at a loss for words, because that look is so abnormal on the normally jovial, relaxed animator it’s genuinely distressing to see it.

          Henry took his silence to mean the conversation was over, giving a deep sigh before rising to his feet, “Nevermind. I guess it doesn’t matter in the long run, and we should get moving.”

          The man gave two perusing glances to the other pathways they had not taken, brow furrowed in thought before finally pointing at the leftmost one, “This one. It’ll loop back around to the front. It’ll take a little longer, but hopefully it’ll be a little safer . . .”

          Sammy just watched him, unsure what to say. Indecision’s not really a normal thing for him, but what the hell was normal here?

          So its quiet for a few seconds. Very quiet, broken only by the distant creak of wood and pipes, the crackle of a dying electric light . . .

          Quiet enough that he nearly leapt out of his own skin when very suddenly, a phone began to ring.

          He spun around to the source of the noise, finding it sitting innocuously on the wall behind him, one of those stupid Bendy-themed phones Joey had thought had been ‘cute’ in the beginning. The noise it gave was loud and piercing, echoing through the derelict halls of the studio, so loud that something somewhere probably heard it.

          Lunging forward on pure instinct, Sammy grabbed the phone and yanked it off its cradle, cursing under his breath as he fought to silence the damn thing. And it did fall silent in that it finally stopped ringing.

          But it was still making noise.

          “He- . . . o?”

          Sammy blinked, looking down at it. A . . . a voice?

          “He-lo? Who i- . . . this?”

          A familiar voice. It was familiar, h-he _knew who that was-!_

          Scrabbling with the phone, he pressed it to his ear and nearly shouted into the receiver, hardly daring to _hope,_ “Susie?! Susie, is that you?!”

          There’s a moment of stunned silence on the other end . . . then, like a _god-send_ , that same familiar voice came back, yelling, “Sam-my?! Oh my-. . god, _Sammy?!”_

          It sounded like her. It sounded _so much_ like her, and Sammy wanted to believe this was really happening. But no sooner had his relief swelled did a darker undercurrent of doubt suddenly sweep in below it, dragging him down. For how could this be _his_ Susie? In all this madness, this chaos, what the fuck was even _real_ anymore?

          His free hand came up to run through his hair, tearing strands out with the force of it, nearly choking on the force of his own, fresh uncertainty, “I-is this . . . is this even happening? H-how am I talking to you? This-this is just another fucking trick, isn’t it, i-it has to be, _it has to be-!”_

          Then, his voice did perhaps the most mortifying thing it could have possibly done to him in the moment.

It fucking _cracked._

          He’s never done that before. _Ever._ Was he just that upset? Was he just losing his mind in this place? It sure sounded like it, with the way his mouth kept rambling seemingly without his consent. It wasn’t until a steady hand appeared on his shoulder that he remembered Henry was still standing in the room with him, right at the same time when Susie’s voice broke through he static again, sounding panicked and so very worried, “Sammy? Sammy, it’s okay! J-just tell me where you are, okay, and I’ll come get you, I’ll _get you!”_

          Tell her where he was . . .?

          She . . . didn’t know where he was?

          _Doesn’t know because you’re not there. Doesn’t know because you’re not where you’re supposed to be. Doesn’t know because_ **_you’re not asleep._**

          It’s the final nail in the coffin for any denials Sammy had left.

          He’s awake. All of this is really happening to him.

          And Susie’s asking him where he is like she can rescue him from it.

          How Sammy felt in that moment is impossible to describe. Terrified, confused, horrified, a mix of so much and so many emotions flooding in all at the same time. And maybe because if that his body genuinely had no idea how else to react, had no other avenue left to ventilate his erratic emotions through any other means.

          He _laughed._

          It sounded manic, even to his ears, which really said just how awful everything was right now.

          “Sammy?” he heard Henry question softly, worriedly, sounding like he was very genuinely afraid for the director’s sanity.

          He can’t blame the guy. Sammy’s a little afraid for it too.

          Instead, he directed his words to Susie, if he was even talking to her, “Y-you can’t. You can’t just come _get me_ , I’m-!”

          _In another world? A terrible, awful, horrid world?_

          “What are you talking about?” Susie asked, but she’s softening her voice, dropping it to a soothing lilt he knew she only used when he was in a _really_ bad mood, “Sammy, just, calm down, okay. I need you to tell me where to go.”

          “No, you don’t understand, Susie!” he shouted, desperate to get across just how much trouble he was in, desperate to explain what was happening even though he had no real idea himself how it had happened, “I’m not- . . . I-it’s like, I’m in the studio, but it’s not _our_ studio!”

          “What? Sammy, what are you-?”

          “You _have_ to get Joey to fix this!” he said, ignoring the way Henry tensed next to him. Whatever Henry felt about Joey Drew here, for Sammy, the man might just be the only one capable of getting him out of this mess.

          “It’s not a dream, Susie!” he shouted, and saying it out loud, admitting it was real, was both liberating and damning all in the same go, “Whatever this is, it’s _not a dream!”_

          “Sammy-?”

          But their time had run out. Behind them, a terrible roar shook the room, and both Sammy and Henry spun around to see a tall, lanky shape lumbering into the room, it wide smile the only thing he could see. And it was charging straight for them.

          His heart practically seized inside his chest, screaming, _“Shit-!”_

          Henry had already grabbed him by the elbow, all but yanking him away from the phone and shooting for the arch beside them. The creature (Bendy?) slammed into the wall right after, crushing the phone to broken bits beneath a huge, gloved hand, growling like an animal.

          Sammy’s own hand went for his neck, the bruises their aching anew, reminding him of just what this thing was capable of, driving a fresh spear of terror through his core.

          It was a mad dash after that, hall after hall, room after room, running so fast it all passed in a blur.

          _“There!”_ Henry shouted, pointing ahead of them.

          At first, Sammy had no idea what he was referring to . . . until his eyes alighted on a small wooden cupboard big enough for someone to stand in, a black halo drawn onto the door. With no preamble or explanation, Henry threw it open and all but shoved Sammy inside, squeezing in himself right after. It was a tight squeeze when Henry shut it behind them, the only light coming from the slit in the door, but Sammy could not complain.

          Especially when the walls began to grow dark outside, the terrible snarling of a _monster_ drawing closer and _closer._

          Sammy slapped a hand against his mouth to keep from making even an iota of noise, but he can’t quite quell the tremors racking his body, shaking so badly his teeth chattered. Beside him, Henry was breathing hard through his nose, hand gripping the handle of the door so hard it must have hurt.

          Movement along the slit drew his eyes up, and he couldn’t quite suppress the whimper that rose up in his throat when he saw the creature from before _right outside their hiding place._ It’s crooked smile was almost perfectly level with the gap in the door, growing closer, and closer, and closer still. The miasma along the walls pressed heavier on him, dense like a fog and twice as oppressive, smothering even the brightest light.

          He felt Henry’s arm push him back, leaning away from the slit until they’re both pressed to the very back of the cupboard. Henry’s arm doesn’t lower either, keeping it braced along Sammy’s chest like that would somehow stop the thing from _ripping them apart as soon as it found them, because that’s what it was going to do, it was going to find them, it was going to fucking **kill them-!**_

          Then, out of nowhere, a gurgle broke the tense silence that had fallen.

          Just behind the creature, Sammy saw one of those horribly deformed Gang members tottering into the open, its mouth hanging gruesomely ajar as it blindly stumbled forward. And the creature, upon hearing it, turned sharply and screamed in rage.

          Completely abandoning the cupboard, it leapt for the smaller ink beast, grabbing it by the head in one over large hand. Smile never fading, Sammy couldn’t tear his eyes away as those grasping fingers tightened their hold, tighter and tighter and _tighter_ , until the other one let loose a horrible scream, like it was in pain, in _horrible pain_ , oh my god, could these things _actually_ _feel-?!_

          _POP!_

          Ink sprayed in nearly every direction as the creature’s head burst like a bubble in the creature’s hand, staining the walls, the floor, even the ceiling with dark stains, and Sammy felt his stomach _lurch._ The sickening _plop_ the remaining body made as the monster dropped it, even as it dissolved, only made the churning worse, and he had to physically fight down the nausea rising in his throat.

          With one last growl, the monster in Bendy’s shape turned and began to walk away, its darkness fading until at _last_ it was gone. After a second to ensure it was safe, Henry finally opened the door, carefully stepping out.

          Sammy couldn’t wait anymore. Pushing his way past the animator, he ran to the side with an arm wrapped around his stomach, and proceeded to vomit.

          He’d already been running on empty, so all that really came up was bile . . . but the sour taste and the smell of ink only made him sicker, his stomach clenching, his throat _hurting_ , coughing, feeling wretched in a way he hadn’t in a _very_ long time, “Fuck . . .”

          And all the while, his head ran everything that just happened on near-constant loop, all of it burned into his mind with sickening clarity, as a tiny little sadistic voice continued to whisper, _you can’t wake up, you can’t wake up, you can’t wake up . . ._

           He stumbled back until he hit the opposite wall, sliding down it when it felt like his legs were about to give out. Everything _hurt_ , his body, mind, and soul, everything feeling hollowed out and fragile, on the verge of _shattering._ And maybe all of that in conjunction with having time to _think_ about it, while being wrung out and exhausted and terrified out of his mind, was why his eyes began to _sting._

          _“Fuck-!”_ he whispered, pressing a hand over his eyes, biting into his lip hard enough to hurt.

          It doesn’t help. Not even a little. And even now, Sammy was mortified that he couldn’t quite stop the way his breath kept hitching, or halt the flow of liquid warmth that stubbornly persisted to slide down his cheeks.

          Beside him, there was a very soft and troubled sigh, reminding him that he had an audience to his breakdown, a fucking _delightful_ thing to remember. And its worse, because now he knew that while its Henry, its _not_ the Henry he knew, was it? It was just some stranger with his face.

          That realization only made the ache in his chest worse.

          But . . . even despite the fact that Sammy was undoubtedly just a stranger to him, too, it didn’t stop the other man from sitting down next to him in quiet solidarity. And even though all he does is press his shoulder to Sammy’s own, the contact was enough to help drive some of the anxiety whirling inside him out, because it helped remind him that, at the very least, stranger or not . . . he wasn’t alone in this awful place.

          . . . still . . . he hoped Susie understood what he had been saying. And, for all his misgivings about his boss’ occult hobby, he hoped that Joey found a way to fix this and bring him back.

          . . . it was the only hope he had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you scream inside a studio, and nobody's there to hear it, did you ever make a sound?


	7. Opening Doors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you open a door, be careful when you do.

Bendy had been tossing and turning in his typical cupboard drawer, inwardly debating just getting up and doing something with his hands instead, when Susie’s call had come in. It had been entirely unexpected in the wee hours of the morning, but it was also sort of a god send, because it wasn’t like any of them had been sleeping beforehand. Even Joey, someone who usually slept like the dead when he was home, had answered it even before Bendy had made it to the living room.

Still, it had been urgent enough that it demanded a bit of an immediate response, and now he and his toon friends were crammed on the couch with Joey, Susie, and Henry around them. Sunlight was just barely beginning to peek through the blinds, a dull, deep gray, with the faintest whistle of wind rustling the leaves outside. Tiredness continued to pull at his body even despite the cup of warm ink he held in his hands, a feeling he could see shared by everyone present, from their sagging shoulders to their heavily ringed eyes. A promise of a long day, if Bendy’s ever seen one.

But maybe . . . a little hopeful? From the sound of it, Susie’s call had implied she’d gotten in touch with Sammy somehow. Although, from how stressed the poor woman looked . . . maybe not.

“So . . .” Henry started, sitting on a plush stool beside the couch, hands wrapped around a mug of still steaming coffee, “Take it from the top, Susie. What happened.”

Susie took a small sip from her own cup, leaning back into the chair Joey had offered her when she’d arrived, “Honestly? Its confusing. First my electric appliances started going crazy, then my phone rang, and when I answered it, Sammy was on the other end. But . . .”

The woman shifted a little in her seat, pursing her lips, “He . . . wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. He kept talking like he couldn’t believe it was really me, and that . . . what was happening wasn’t a dream? I don’t know . . . but he sounded scared.”

 _“Scared?”_ Bendy repeated, incredulous, “Sammy Lawrence?”

“Susie knows what she heard, Bendy!” Alice snapped, eyes narrowed in his direction. Sheesh, she was in a bad mood . . .

Bendy quickly held up a placating hand, waving the tired and irritated angel down, “Hey, hey, never said she didn’t! Just, you know, generally speaking . . . Sammy only ever has two emotions; angry and _really_ angry.”

“Did he give you any idea of where he was?” Henry asked, steering the topic back to the matter at hand.

Susie twirled the cup in her hand, tapping her fingers against the ceramic, “Not very much. The only thing I could really understand was that he said he was somewhere like the studio, but . . . it wasn’t _our_ studio.”

Bendy stiffened. Beside him, he felt Alice do the same.

The studio, but _not_ the studio . . . her words struck such an unpleasant chord inside him that it reverberated throughout his whole being, and memories he’d been doing a pretty swell job of burying so far began to rise to the surface.

“And, um . . .” Susie spoke haltingly, unusual even the best of circumstances, her face filling with distress, “There was something at the end. Before I lost contact, I heard, um . . . shrieking. Like . . . like an animal of some kind, and . . .” she sniffed a little, and shock jolted through Bendy when he saw the woman’s eyes begin to water, “It sounded like he was being _chased_ by something . . .”

Henry moved closer and placed a consoling hand on the woman’s shoulder, even though he looked a little distraught himself.

Bendy would normally chip in with something silly by now, to lighten the atmosphere and perk some spirits back up . . . except right then, he felt frozen to the seat, and he can’t quite make the words come like he wanted them to.

“Bendy?” Boris asked, sensing the other’s sudden distress.

 _Oh, relax, ya stupid ink blot,_ he told himself with a stubborn shake of his head, trying to loosen his fingers from where they had begun to strangle his cup, _you’re overreacting!_

Nearby, Joey gave a very sudden, and very odd, cough, followed by the tiniest, most fearing murmur Bendy had ever heard from the man, “Oh dear . . .”

All eyes turned to the man, who was standing in the corner with his magic book clamped tight in his hands, a finger tapping nervously against the cover. He began to fidget when everyone looked at him, practically sweating bullets, and Bendy got the very distinct impression that the man would rather be anywhere else right then.

“Joey?” Henry asked in his very ‘what-are-you-hiding-now-Joey’ tone of voice.

“Erm . . .” their collective boss started, swallowing. He flicked a glance at Bendy and Alice, then down at the book he held, but instead of the usual expression of a child who knew he was about to be in a world of trouble . . . he just looked guilty, “Uh, well, I . . . looked through the book again. You know, trying to figure out how to uncast the spell, but, um . . . I found that the spell didn’t make as much sense as I thought it had the first time I read it. And . . .”

Bendy frowned hard at the man, not liking where this was going, “ _Why_ don’t the spell make sense?”

“Because, um . . .” Joey’s lips pressed into a very thin line, still fidgeting. Then, he popped the book open and the flipped the pages until he stopped on one, a page that needed no explanation as to what it was. He carefully pulled it up till it was held vertically from the rest of the book so everyone could clearly see it . . . then pinched the page between his thumb and index finger and dragged them together.

. . . pulling apart two pages where previously they thought had only been one.

In the silence that followed, Joey softly spoke, looking shamefacedly at the floor, “. . . because the pages were stuck together . . .”

“. . . Joey, are you _serious?!”_ Bendy demanded, hopping to the floor and pointing at him with an irate finger, “Then what spell _did_ you cast on us?!”

“That’s the thing, it was technically . . . both?” Joey floundered, looking anywhere but the demon’s direction.

A hand appeared on Bendy’s shoulder before the demon could snap again, and he looked to see that Henry was standing next to him now. The animator gave him a gentle squeeze and a nod before fixing his eyes on Joey, inquiring, “Joey, can you explain what that means in layman’s terms?”

“Well . . .” the man paused, seeming to think over what exactly he was going to say that would incur the least amount of wrath, “Like I said, there were . . . two spells. One was the dream spell, _Morpheus’ Jaunt_. It allowed whoever cast the spell to experience dreams they could control, which at the time sounded stupendous! I mean, being able to create your own worlds, however you imagined them to be, it could have-!"

  
_"Joey,”_ Henry, Bendy, Alice, and Susie all intoned at the same time.

Joey stumbled over his last few words, “Ah-ah, right, right. Well, that was the first half I cast. The other one . . .”

He turned the page he was holding, eyes shifting over words Bendy knew none of them would really understand before looking back up, “It’s called . . . it’s called _Mirror of the Fates_. And its purpose was to . . . was to supposedly open a window that you could see through.”

 _“Why_ would you need magic to do that?” Bendy asked, a little irritated and worried all at the same time, “We got _tons_ of windows! Nice, normal ones! And, get this, some of ‘em . . . _open.”_

“I don’t think it’s that kinda window, Ben,” Henry said, frowning.

Joey gnawed at his bottom lip, drumming his fingers almost indecisively against the binding of the book in his hands, “Well its- . . . To put it simply, its like a-. . . Well, more accurately, it’d be- . . .”

The man kept stalling, gaze flipping between Bendy and Alice rather erratically even for their loony creator.

“Joey?” Bendy started, brow rising in mystified confusion. Just what was going on inside the man’s head right now?

 Joey’s mouth closed, throat bobbing as he looked at the book again. Bendy saw several emotions flit over his face, so fast he could barely read ‘em before it finally settled on something that looked a little like determination.

And when he finally looked up again . . . it was with a smile.

“Well, the best explanation is that it’s a window into possibilities! Normally for prophecy and such!”

The complete one-eighty in behavior caught _everyone_ off-guard.

“Uh . . .” Bendy stared, holding up a finger, “Did you just go senile in the last few minutes?”

“No, no, of course not! At least not any more than usual!” Joey said like that was normal. The only thing his reassurances did was make everyone trade a worried glance.

“Okay . . .” he heard Susie say, the space between her brows pinching together, “What does this have to do with finding Sammy?”

Bendy looked at Joey as he waited for his explanation to that, eager to have an answer to that problem. So focused was he on that, he failed to notice the gleam of suspicion shining in Henry’s eyes.

Joey cleared his throat, and Bendy heard the crinkle of paper as a page was flipped again, “Well . . . these two spells would be very unstable right now, seeing as how they were accidently merged and therefore not complete. As such, any number of things could happen! From the sound of it, Sammy accidently got displaced, but ordinarily, _neither_ of these spells would be strong enough to do that to somebody. The only thing I can think of is maybe the . . . _dreams_ grew strong enough to form a sort of . . . _plane_ , right in our own studio, though how they got so powerful I can’t even begin to figure out! I was _very_ careful to avoid using any blood this time!”

_“. . . oooooh . . .”_

Bendy didn’t even need to look up to know that Henry’s face had completely drained of color, but he did anyway. The man looked completely distraught as he stared Joey’s way, “I, um . . . I might have had something to do with that . . .”

Slowly, Henry related to them of when they had retrieved the book, and the accidental drop of blood that had landed on the open page. Joey’s face gradually grew more and more drawn as he went on, before he finally looking down when he was done, “Oh dear . . .”

“Okay, well, that doesn’t mean we can’t _fix_ it, right?” Susie asked, looking between the two men for an answer.

Alice spoke up just after the woman, looking very, very worried as she pressed her hands together, halo dimming, “Sammy isn’t in any actual danger, is he? H-he’s okay, right?”

Joey immediately straightened, dropping the anxious look he’d been sporting fast, “Of course he’s okay, and of course we can fix this! In fact, I wager with this new knowledge, we have a better chance, because now I know what’s gone wrong!”

Little flickers of relief and hope began to eddy through their little group, and Bendy felt his own tense shoulders relax, “Ya mean that, Joey?”

The man nodded confidently, “I do. I just need to gather up a few, uh . . . _accoutrements_ before we head over to the studio!”

“The studio?” Boris questioned, tilting his head to the side, “Why the studio?”

 “That’s the place where the effects of the spells are strongest! And that’s where Sammy was last seen! Its better to be closer to the source than far away when your attempting to reverse a spell’s effect,” Joey explained, closing his book and tucking it under his arm, “I mean, I know it’s a bit of a mess right now, but I’m sure there’s _some_ dry ground we can use somewhere!”

“I guess you know best about this stuff . . .” Bendy commented, though his lips were pursed into a frown, not too keen on the idea of wading through the ink again, “Kinda . . .”

“Thanks!” was Joey’s oblivious response to that.

“So, what do _we_ do?” Alice asked, anxiously fidgeting with the skirt of her dress.

At that, Joey faltered a little, “Erm, well . . . there’s not too much, unfortunately. I just need the components for the reversal, and uh, just a little bit of Henry’s blood.”

Henry stared at the man, and Joey held up a hand with his index finger and thumb pressed close together, attempting to be placating, “Just a _little_ bit!”

_“. . . why?”_

“Well, it was _your_ blood that amplified the spell,” Joey explained, looking a little sheepish, “So it will . . . take a little bit more to do the opposite.”

Henry closed his eyes and gave a deep sigh, reaching up to knead his fingers into his temple before finally replying, “Fine. If it fixes the problem, _fine.”_

Bendy pat the man’s leg sympathetically, quipping quietly so only Henry could hear, “Well, at least its not a ritual sacrifice.”

Henry only hummed in response, his mind clearly occupied by other things. Like having to donate his blood to a probably demonic spell.

“I’ll run upstairs and get my things!” Joey declared, half-turning in preparation to do just that. Then, he snapped his fingers, “Oh, I know something the rest of you can do!”

Everyone immediately perked up, Bendy himself highly interested in the possibility of actually doing something _useful._ He’d never liked sitting on the sidelines when something important needed doin’.

“If you can, try to find something of personal value to Sammy. The stronger, the better!” Joey told them, and at everyone’s slightly puzzled stares, he went on, “Since a part of this, er, ritual, will sort of act like a reverse summoning too, something personal to the one in question helps improve our chances! A photo, an important piece of memorabilia, something like that! I’m sure there’s something like that in the studio!”

Bendy rubbed the space between his horns, murmuring, “I don’t know, is Sammy that type a guy?”

Alice huffed, hopping from her seat after setting her cup down, “Sammy _cares_ about things, Bendy, he just . . . has a unique way to of showing it.”

“Uh-huh,” Bendy hummed in mock disbelief, “And even if he’s got stuff, we sure he’d keep something like that at the studio? You know, the place that’s made it it’s personal mission to drench everything he owns?”

Alice pressed a hand to her mouth, brow furrowing, “Hmmm . . .”

“What about music?”

Everyone turned to Boris, who’s ears were standing straight as he returned their gazes, “Sammy loves music, don’t he? He’s always workin’ on it, and playin’ instruments, and singin’, and he has all those records he keeps in his office in water-proof bags!”

“You’re right!” Alice replied, her eyes starting to sparkle, “Joey, would those records work?”

“If they’re important to him, then yes, absolutely!” Joey nodded, grinning now.

Bendy lightly nudged Boris in the side, smiling approvingly at his friend, “Good thinkin’, big guy.”

Boris smiled widely, always one to adore praise like the big ol’ dog he was. Privately though, Bendy made it a new little mission to figure where exactly Boris went to hear Sammy singing all the time. That kind thing would lead to some great opportunities for a good little teasing. Oh sure, he wouldn’t be _too_ hard on the pranks and what-not when the director initially got back, but Sammy owed him for makin’ ‘em all worry like this.

“Why don’t you all go on ahead and collect those,” Joey said, “I promise, I’ll be right behind you! Just need to get together those things I need!”

Another round of glances, but this silence lasted only a handful of seconds before Susie took the helm. The distress that had filled her before had been replaced by renewed vigor, eyes shining with determination, “Well, what are we waiting for then? No time like the present, and I’m sure Sammy’s sick of waiting for us, so let’s get started!”

Alice and Boris were already nodding in agreement, looking eager as they followed the woman to the door.

“This is the second time you’ll be into work early,” he heard Alice comment, a touch of wry humor in her voice, “ _Two_ days in a row.”

“I know, I should start asking Joey for overtime!” Susie replied, loudly and giving the man in question a purposeful glance over her shoulder.

Joey rubbed the back of his head, giving her an awkward half-smile until she opened the door and ushered the two toons outside. It was only when she was gone that he finally he dropped it, shoulders sagging.

“How long will it take you to get everything?” Henry asked, crossing his arms.

“Oh, no time at all! But you and Bendy go on ahead!” Joey replied, waving dismissively at the two of them before tromping up the stairs to the second story, to where Bendy knew he stored most of his occult . . . things.

A hand appeared on his shoulder, and he glanced at Henry, wondering what he wanted. The man smiled slightly before gesturing to the door, “Hey, Bendy . . . think you could hitch a ride with Susie instead? There’s . . . something I wanted to ask Joey.”

Bendy blinked at him, curious, “What about?”

Henry shrugged, “Oh, you know . . . just trying to make sure he’s not gonna use _too_ big of a knife when he does . . . whatever he’s going to do.”

He awkwardly bent and unbent his elbow, looking uncomfortable, and Bendy looked at him sympathetically as he set his mug down, “I mean, I’m sure it’s not gonna be _bad_ , Henry. Joey said it himself, he only needs a little bit, so its not like he’s gonna cut any arteries or anythin’!”

Silence sat over the pair for a little bit, Henry rolling his lips inward and closing his eyes in quiet dread. Finally, Bendy slowly nodded his head and pressed his hands together, pointing them the man’s way, “You’re right, that was absolutely not the right thing to say, and I apologize for that.”

Henry just sighed, “Don’t worry about it. Really, I just want to make sure Joey stays on track and not do anything too . . . Joey-like. You know.”

“Yeah. I _know,”_ Bendy said meaningfully, remembering how this whole fiasco started.

“We’ll be right behind you guys,” Henry said reassuringly, “I’ll make _sure_ we are.”

Bendy nodded, taking Henry’s word a lot better than Joey’s. Not for nothin’, but his creator could get . . . distracted sometimes. Easily.

Henry released his shoulder, nodding to the door, “You should probably get going before she leaves.”

“Sure you don’t want an extra pair of hands?” Bendy asked, holding up his gloved ones and flexing his fingers for show.

Henry laughed a little, “I think we’ll be fine. Besides, its not like either of us know what to look for.”

“Heh, true,” Bendy said with an incline of his head, “Still, make sure ya make it snappy! Sooner we get this all squared away, the better!”

“Of course,” Henry promised.

The sound of a car revving snagged both their attention, and the two shot each other a panicked look before Bendy ran out the door like a bullet, frantically waving at the car that had begun to pull out of the drive-way.

Susie was understandably a little confused when he pulled open the door to the backseat and clambered inside, taking a seat next to an equally puzzled Boris, “Hi, Bendy. Weren’t you riding with Henry?”

“He’s stayin’ for a little bit. Make sure Joey does what he’s supposed to,” Bendy explained as he clicked in his seat belt. Safety first, kids.

“Well, that’s probably for the best. Can’t have Joey slacking off right now,” Susie commented, adjusting her rearview mirror.

“. . . he _can_ fix it, right?”

Everyone looked to Alice, the angel’s halo still a little dark with her forlorn thoughts. He can’t see her expression from this angle, but Bendy was sure it was a sad and anxious one.

Boris reached over with a long arm, gently patting her shoulder, “Aw, don’t worry angel. Joey knows what he’s doing, right? And he sounded really confident!”

She didn’t sound too reassured, head lowering, “He said . . . that Sammy was ‘displaced’. But what did that _mean_ , really? A dream spell and a fortune-telling spell couldn’t really do that, could they?”

“Well, he _did_ say Henry’s blood accidently made them stronger,” Susie reminded her, rapping a finger against the steering wheel.

“Even with that . . . something just sounds . . . off,” was the angel’s quiet reply, “Don’t you think?”

No one really had an answer to that. And yeah, Bendy guessed he could see her point. But . . .

“Hey, come on Alice, yer supposed to be the cherub that brings the cheer, not the gal the brings the gloom!” Bendy chipped in, reaching around to flick her halo upright, “Sides, even if this magic’s gone all weird, Boris is right. Joey did seem pretty confident he could undo it!”

“He did! And while Joey Drew is phenomenally infamous for causing trouble, he’s pretty good at fixing his mistakes! Just look at Bendy!” Susie added with a smile, ignoring the look Bendy gave her. Then, with a little more tenderness, she reached over and gently brushed Alice’s bangs out of her eyes, “Don’t you worry so much, hun. This time tomorrow, we’ll all be laughing over this. _If_ Sammy hasn’t killed somebody by then!”

That got a round of soft laughter, Alice’s halo brightening up again and shedding the car with a warm golden light.

“Alright,” Susie said, squaring her shoulders, “Everybody buckled in?”

“Yes ma’am!” Boris answered faithfully.

Bendy gave her a thumbs up, and the woman began to pull out of the driveway, tires squeaking as they crossed over the slight lip. As they back onto the road proper, Bendy noticed Alice’s hands tighten on the sides of her seat, an action that momentarily puzzled him.

He was about to ask her what she was doing, when Susie suddenly piped up, “Brace yourselves though, I’ve had seven cups of coffee and I take no prisoners.”

Then she peeled out onto the road like the four horsemen of the apocalypse themselves were chasing after her heels. Later, gripping the seat for all he was worth, Bendy sincerely wished he had just waited for the other two to get done.

_

Henry waited until the sound of the car faded into the distance, before sighing and turning to the stairwell. It was dark all the way up until the top, where the light from whatever room Joey was in shone brightly above. Quietly, Henry began to ascend, his joints creaking as assuredly as the wood beneath his feet.

He heard the sounds of rummaging and quiet muttering as he reached the top, turning to the left and into the hall. The second door to the right of him was slightly ajar, light spilling through the crack, and Henry went on over and gently nudged it open.

Joey was inside, no surprise, pulling out knick-knacks and utensils Henry had no idea what their purpose could be for, murmuring quietly to himself as he worked. Henry watched as the other man reached into a drawer and withdrew something long and silver, and his muscles seized a little when he realized that it was an oddly curved dagger the length of his entire forearm. Joey stared at for a few seconds longer than Henry was comfortable with, before finally shaking his head and tossing it back.

Thank god.

Taking in a quiet breath, Henry closed the door behind him and cleared his throat, finally announcing his presence.

Joey started upright _much_ harder than Henry had anticipated, spinning around so fast his hip slammed jarringly into the desk. Henry winced in sympathetic pain, watching as the other man danced slightly as he grabbed at his hip, obviously in pain.

“H-Henry! Wha-wha-what are you still doing here?!” Joey asked, apparently not having anticipated anyone sticking around.

Henry raised an eyebrow, a little perplexed by the strong reaction.

Although . . . if his hunch was right, it might not be so surprising after all. He felt bad for lying to Bendy, but . . . he wasn’t sure if he wanted to rock the boat there, not when the toon was already so stressed. Besides, it . . . could be nothing. It could be nothing . . .

“To talk,” he replied, stepping closer.

Joey closed the drawer behind him, still rubbing his hip as he walked over the box at the center of the floor, “Well, not much to talk about! I’m almost done here, Henry, promise!”

“Not about that,” Henry said, attempting to meet the man’s eyes, an attempt met with failure since the other man kept avoiding his gaze. It became clear that Joey wasn’t going to come clean on his own, so Henry just dove right into the heart of it, “Joey, downstairs, when you were talking about the spells . . . you weren’t telling the whole truth, were you?”

Joey picked up the box and set it on the table just behind him, carefully placing the tome Henry had helped retrieve the day before inside, purposefully keeping his back turned, “I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about, Henry. Those _are_ the intended purposes of the spells, so I don’t-,”

“Joey,” Henry cut him off, stepping closer until he stood only an arm’s length away, “You’ve always been good with words. When it comes down to it, you can be a good actor too. But I’ve worked with you for thirty years . . . and I know when you’re not saying everything.”

Reaching out, Henry placed a hand on the other’s shoulder, hoping to tease something out, anything at all, “So what is it you’re not saying?”

“I . . .” Joey closed his mouth, glanced over his shoulder, then just as quickly looked away. Henry could feel the way the other’s muscles tensed under his hand, Joey’s fingers grasping tightly to the flap’s dangling from the box, so tight his knuckles turned white.

Time felt like it slowed to a trickle, a breathless handful of minutes that moved at a snail’s pace as Henry waited.

Then, “Henry . . . when the blood hit that page, did anything . . . strange happen?”

Henry blinked, “Well, the studio started shaking . . .”

“And . . . anything else?” Joey pressed.

Henry thought. And then he swallowed. Oh yes, there had been one other thing. He remembered it very clearly. But it had all happened so fast, and it was so _outlandish_ . . . he felt silly bringing it up.

“Henry?”

Pursing his lips, feeling his heart drum a little louder than before, Henry spoke, “Well, um . . . there was one other thing, but I thought I was just hallucinating. While I was down there, we found a . . . a mirror. And right after the shaking stopped, I thought I saw . . . god, it’s stupid . . .”

“. . . you saw something in the mirror, didn’t you?”

Henry’s heart gave a hard, unpleasant _thud._

“I . . . I did. I thought it was me at first, but-”

“There were differences, weren’t there? Little things, that made you think you weren’t looking at a reflection.”

Henry stared at the man’s back, growing more disturbed by the second, “H-how . . .?”

Joey gave a sudden and weary sigh, tremulous and shaking as the man suddenly slumped forward, one arm braced along the edge of the table while the other came up to cup a hand over his eyes, knocking his glasses up, “Oh _no . . .”_

The sheer level of anguish in Joey’s voice immediately put Henry on edge, and he leaned closer, placing his own hand on the table without removing his other one, trying to look Joey in the face, concerned and now a little fearful. The only time he’d heard his friend ever sound so distraught was when they had brought Bendy home after his accident with the church, “Joey, what is it?”

The other man exhaled again, “I . . . I wasn’t lying when I said the other spell opened a window to other possibilities. But . . . but it’s not for _prophecy_ , Henry. Its real purpose was . . .” the man swallowed hard, “It’s real purpose was to open a window to other realities.”

Something very cold traveled up Henry’s spine then, an icy talon of dread that made his entire body shiver, “. . . what?”

“Realities . . . just like our own, but with differences that set them apart from us. _That’s_ the second spell that got mixed in,” Joey faltered for a moment, leg beginning to bounce erratically, “What you saw, Henry . . . and what Alice and Bendy dreamed about, I . . . I’m afraid that it might be possible that it . . . wasn’t just a hallucination. That they weren’t . . . just dreams.”

Henry’s mind reeled back to that moment with the mirror, the disconcerting reflection he’d seen within, his instinctive urge to say it was just a trick of the light battling furiously with Joey’s words. It had just been a mirror, and he’d been tired and stressed when he had looked at it. But . . . it had looked so _real,_ too. It had felt like he’d been looking at more than just a mirror then, and . . . and that was actually supposed to be truth? Another reality? Another world? Another-?

Another . . . _him?_

“How . . . how is that possible?” Henry started slowly, still not able to fully believe it.

“. . . the spells are unstable. Neither of them of them were fully complete, and because of that, neither of them have a proper . . . _ending_ to them,” Joey explained slowly, “So they’ve just hung static over the studio this whole time. What Alice experienced was the backlash of that. It probably would have stayed that way too, until . . .”

The man trialed off, but Henry already knew what he had been going to say, “Until my blood hit the page . . .”

Joey nodded, “Yes. With the way _Mirror of the Fates_ describes it, your blood’s now acted as a sort of . . . anchor. The dreams were already giving glimpses to the other side of the window, but after that, its more like its . . . torn a sort of _rift_ between us.”

Henry stepped back, holding up his hands, “Okay, okay, hold on. S-so are you trying to say that there’s some sort of . . . hole in the studio right now? To-to some other . . . what, _dimension?”_

“. . . its not outside the realm of possibility,” Joey answered softly, “And I think . . . I think it might be possible that’s where Sammy’s ended up . . .”

Henry had no idea what to say to that. He really, truly didn’t, because it’s so . . . _impossible!_ But . . . he knew Joey isn’t withholding anything now, is telling the full truth, and the evidence Henry had seen with his own eyes . . . god, his mind was reeling harder than it had even when Joey had first summoned _Bendy._

_Have you ever had a dream, Henry, where somebody close to ya died?_

His heart had been pounding before. Now, remembering that faintly whispered memory, it felt like it _froze._

“Joey . . . how much of those dreams could have been true? All of it?” Henry asked, dreading the answer.

Joey finally turned to him, clutching the box close, looking helpless, “I . . . I really don’t know, Henry. At least part, I would imagine.”

_Do you feel comfortable talking about who?_

_. . . everyone._

With a sense of quiet horror beginning to worm its way under his skin, Henry stared at Joey and said with no small sense of urgency, “Joey if . . . if even _half_ of it is true, then we _need_ to get moving! Sammy could be in serious trouble!”

Joey’s eyes widened slightly. That’s right, Bendy never spoke to him about even a little about the dream he’d experienced, and Henry never told him what he knew. But the other man must see he’s not kidding around, because then he was nodding, “Alright. I have everything I need here.”

Henry nodded, even as his shoulders sagged a little in relief at Joey’s words, “So, you do have a way to fix it? All of it?”

“I do!” Joey replied, this time with a small, encouraging smile, “I wasn’t lying about that, either! Hopefully by this afternoon, we’ll all be sharing a good . . . well, something!”

Henry nodded again, feeling a little emboldened by the idea. He just . . . had to stay positive until then.

“Although . . . just one thing, old friend.”

Henry frowned a little as Joey’s shoulders tucked slightly, looking at him pleadingly, “Please, don’t tell Bendy and Alice about this. I want to put all of this behind us as soon as possible, and I don’t want to scare them any more than they already have been.”

Henry looked to the ground. Out of principle, he never liked lying to people, and he didn’t like being lied to. But that wasn’t to say he didn’t understand exactly where Joey was coming from. Just from the scant few things Bendy had told him, and how he had reacted to it even under the knowledge that it was just a dream . . . what would happen if he found it was possible some of it had been real? Henry truly didn’t want to find out.

So, after a deep, weary sigh, he looked up and nodded, “Alright. We’ll keep this quiet. But let’s go finish this before anything else happens.”

Joey sagged, looking so very relieved, “Thank you Henry. I promise, I’ll get all of this sorted out.”

The man walked by him and out of the room, and Henry turned to follow, though not before he caught sight of the lone pane of reflective glass hanging on Joey’s wall. He stared at it for a moment, his own reflection looking back . . . and wondered what exactly it had been that had looked back instead that day in the basement. He tried to imagine it, that the face in the glass right now was in fact an entirely separate person from himself, who shared his face and . . . possibly nothing else. He tried to imagine the reflected world within, a world like his, but different. A _bad_ different, if everything that had happened so far had been any indication, but a real one all the same.

. . . it’s hard to believe it still. Very hard. And really, all it did was make him profoundly uncomfortable to try.

So, turning away, he left and tried to focus instead on what they had to do now.

He hoped it would all be over soon.

_

Joey is . . . a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Oh sure, he can be a little scatterbrained, but he wasn’t completely oblivious to other views of him. And, regardless of popular opinion of his impulsivity (which he was, no doubt), he really _did_ try to be a little careful when it came to his magic practice, especially as he grew older.

That’s why this mess they were in right now weighed on him so heavily. And why he was particularly determined to fix it.

He had all the things he needed, laid out around him on the points of the inverted triangles and lines he had drawn inside the circle. Three black candles (a staple), a record of Sammy’s (which Susie had asked him _not_ to destroy), and a small silver dish with a small droplet of red inside (sorry Henry). And, in front of him . . . a large cracked mirror, with a sculpture of Bendy’s head crowning the top.

He’d asked all the others to wait outside. In verbatim, it was for quiet, and so no one could accidently knock anything over or disrupt the circle. Which was all true!

But . . . there was another thing he hadn’t told them. Normally, at least according to the spell proper, only the side that cast the spell could influence it. Nothing else could. And while the rift itself was a little unusual, and more than likely unstable, it ultimately would be harmless since without anyone to guide it, it remained dormant and therefore, for the most part, closed. The only reason Sammy would have gone through was one-part Henry’s accidental influence opening it in the first place, and two-parts his sheer bad luck. He still hadn’t completely canned his personal theory that Sammy had been cursed somewhere down the line by a particularly vindictive witch.

He supposed he should be grateful more people hadn’t gotten pulled through . . .

Still . . . for Joey to be able to pull Sammy back from wherever he had gone, Joey had to crack open the rift again. And while it wouldn’t be for very long, at least in theory . . . well, an open door is still a two-way street. Even a magical one.

Joey just really hoped it wasn’t as dangerous as Henry believed it to be. Or, if it _was_ . . . that nothing else came through until he closed it again. For good.

But this was the only option he had. So, cracking open the book to the correct page, he took a deep, deep breath and said, “Well, here goes nothing.”

And he started to chant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What you fight to keep out, may also come through.


	8. Stories Lost, and Stories Told

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dark places are deep and filled with stories tragic and true.

          Sammy doesn’t really know how long they sit there for, but its for long enough that the twisting terror and panic he’d experienced settled into something . . . well, not _normal_ , but at least a little less extreme. He didn’t feel like he was about to teeter into a panic attack, at the very least.

          That doesn’t mean he felt _good._ Physically, his stomach hurt, and there was a dull throbbing in his head that came and went in waves, like the aftermath of a particularly loose party. And, while he’d . . . regained some of his composure, his face felt sore and there was an aching, empty hollowness inside his chest, like everything had been scooped out then dumped haphazardly back inside. He still hadn’t removed his hand from his face, the dark helping him process his new and terrifying reality, a fact that teased at him so relentlessly that a constant undercurrent of fear was running through his body. Even now, every sense was hyper aware, picking through the sounds of ink and creaking wood for anything out of the ordinary. Anything that could be . . . dangerous.

          And he was _exhausted._ A heavy weariness that settled so deep Sammy could feel it in his bones, and if not for his own sense of self-preservation and the very real fear of something _finding_ him, he might have just fallen asleep on the spot.

          But there came a definite end when Henry-a stranger, not the man he knew-finally shifted to stand, apparently deciding they’d lingered for long enough. Sammy hadn’t realized how heavily he’d been leaning against the other in the time they had sat there either, having to catch himself with his free hand as Henry left to keep from falling onto his side. The abrupt movement and the coldness against his shoulder was like a splash of water to his face, knocking him out of the fugue state he’d entered, and Sammy finally allowed his hand to slip away from his eyes, blinking as they adjusted to the faint, feeble light.

          Ink-spattered walls were all that greeted him, just one more grim reminder of the situation he was in.

          Beside him, Henry spoke softly, “Come on. We should get moving, try to find Al and Tom.”

          Right, the two toon creatures that looked like Alice and Boris, but obviously weren’t. At least, not any iteration he was familiar with, unless the Bendy cartoon here had a very different take on the characters than his own did. But Sammy could see Henry’s point. There was safety in numbers, and if they stayed here, how long before something found them?

          Even so, the thought of wandering in this twisted version of the studio filled with genuine _monsters_ made an unpleasant shiver go up his spine.

          . . . maybe not the best line of thinking right now . . .

          Still, he slowly nodded his agreeance, even as he let out a shaky exhale. Fuck, just why did the universe have it out for him like this?

          That was when a hand appeared in his vision, a clear, unspoken offer of help. Sammy stared at it for solid few seconds, before finally muttering a quiet ‘fuck it’ and accepting the hand before him. This Henry was no less strong than the one he knew, hauling Sammy to his feet with next to no effort. He wobbled only a little as he straightened, ignoring the way his legs protested standing and how his own tiredness pulled at him. He kept this gaze firmly fixed to some point to the left, not looking Henry in the eye as he took his hand back and began to awkwardly knead it into his shoulder.

          There’s a moment of silence, until a hand was placed on his other shoulder, Henry’s words soft, but understanding, “It’s not something to be ashamed about, what happened earlier.”

          Sammy’s lips pursed, shaking his head as he shrugged the hand off, “That doesn’t really make me feel better . . .”

          A little rude? Yes, but then he’s never really been known for acting any other way. And while maybe he meant well, Sammy was still embarrassed, and no amount of consoling was really going to soothe that, no matter how understandable it might be.

         Henry doesn’t seem to take any offense to it, though. Instead, all he said was, “I know.”

         The other man turned away, fishing something off of the ground before holding it out for Sammy to take; the pipe he had dropped when he’d been shoved inside the closet. He looked at it with nothing but distaste, but he accepted it with a begrudging frown, knowing it was better than walking around defenseless. The metal was cold in his hands, a little slick from the ink, but the weight of it was a little reassuring. The thought of using it though . . .

         A sudden swell of bitterness rose up inside him, curdling sour with the fear already churning in his gut, “This is really happening, isn’t it?”

         He still doesn’t look at Henry, but he could hear the solemnity in the man’s voice very clearly, “Yes. It is.”

         Sammy sighed again, running a trembling hand through his hair like that would somehow chase away all his distress. It doesn’t, of course. In fact, feeling the crusted tangles in his hair where the ink had dried might have only made him feel even worse.

          After giving him a moment to come to terms with that, Henry eventually shifted his grip on his axe and asked, “Ready?”

          Sammy glared at the wall, “No.”

          Henry huffed slightly, “Me neither. Let’s go.”

          The man began to walk, and Sammy trailed after him, beginning to glance at his surroundings with a wary and uneasy eye. Just what else was out there? He shuddered to think. Not to mention the state of the place. Pipes, ink dripping everywhere, rotted walls and floorboards . . . how long ago had it been since this place had gone to hell? And . . . what had happened to everyone in it? Had they . . . made it out? Or were they . . .?

          He shut that line of thought down _immediately._ He knew he was a pessimist who griped about his coworkers day-in and day-out . . . but even _he_ didn’t want to think like that.

          “Try not to think about it too hard,” Henry’s voice cut through Sammy’s own worried thoughts, apparently having read them, “It won’t do you any good. Trust me.”

          “Tch,” he groused, gripping the pipe in his hands a little harder, “Easier said than done . . .”

         “I know,” Henry said again, checking around a corner before moving on, “But telling you now means it’ll be in the back of your mind every time you try.”

         Sammy grunted, glancing at his companions’ back. Alright, so maybe this Henry had the same simple sense his coworker had. But questions still pricked at his mind like little thorns regardless. Questions that . . . weren’t very good, but were there anyway. Its hard not to think about . . .

        “Do you still write music?”

 _That_ caught him by surprise, and he gave the man in front of him a bewildered stare, “What?”

         Henry shrugged, inquiring again, “Do you still write music? That’s all.”

         Sammy quirked an eyebrow, growing a little suspicious, “. . . why are you asking me that?”

         The other man gave him a one-armed shrug, “Well, we can talk while we walk, can’t we?”

        “You sure you want to be talking _now?”_ Sammy asked, giving a _very_ pointed look at their surroundings. He wasn’t sure what had come over the other man, but a Q  & A in the middle of a cursed studio seemed almost unhinged.

        “So long as we keep it quiet,” Henry said, “But . . . if you’re not comfortable answering, that’s fine.”

        Hmph . . .

         Sammy glanced around again, just to make doubly sure it was _just_ them, before finally deciding to answer with a hushed, “Yes, I still write.”

         Henry kept his eyes forward, but he sounded pleased when he replied, “That’s good. Is it . . . still for your studio?”

         Sammy nodded, remembered Henry couldn’t see that, then said, “Of course I do. Anybody else would just botch the job.”

         Henry huffed what almost could be taken for a laugh before continuing, “Still protective of it, I see.”

         “Not protective, just rational,” Sammy defended.

         “Ah, of course,” Henry conceded, sounding amused. Then, he asked, “I know it’s probably a dumb question, but are you still gunning for Broadway?”

         Sammy paused, surprised. Oh sure, there may have been one or two times he’d thought about it, but eventually he’d decided he didn’t even particularly _want_ that sort of stardom. For the most part, he was fine where he was at.

         But he had never really _told_ anybody that . . . so why did this guy know?

         “Why do you ask?” Sammy questioned, trying not to sound suspicious.

         “Well . . .” Henry suddenly sounded awkward, rubbing the back of his head, “ _Here_ , at least, Sammy would talk about it when we shared a smoke break. Said he couldn’t wait to get out. I thought, maybe, it’d be similar?”

         Henry waited for his response, but Sammy’s mind was now very far away from his question.

         Here, he’d said. In _this_ world. Another world, with another Henry, in another Drew Studios, and it should have been obvious from the start, but it was only _now_ that he really, truly considered it; the very real, very disturbing fact that there _would_ be another Sammy in this world too. Another version that looked like him and spoke like him and moved like him, a reflection without the glass. A version this Henry obviously knew.

          A reflection that he had . . . already run into . . . a crazed reflection that believed _Bendy_ , of all things, to be some kind of god (even though that thing can’t _really_ be Bendy, it was . . . too vicious, too _monstrous_ , to be), so removed from any kind of reality he understood that Sammy genuinely doesn’t want to believe its him at all, just some dark, inky specter that _happened_ to have a similar voice. Because accepting that, accepting it to be _true_. . . what the hell did that say about _him?_

         “Sammy?” he heard Henry ask, having ceased walking because Sammy now realized _he_ had stopped walking, looking at him with concern.

          Shivering a little and compulsively glancing behind him, feeling suddenly paranoid, Sammy swallowed down his nerves and inquired, “Henry . . . back before you . . . before you found me. In that room, there was a, a thing. A monster . . .”

          He can see by the sudden gleam in Henry’s eyes that the man already knew where this was going, and his expression flipped between sorrow and pity, “Sammy . . .”

          “That wasn’t really me, was it? Sure, it _sounded_ like me, but I’m not some raving cultist! _How_ could I become some raving cultist? I make it a point to _not_ stroke that devil’s already overblown ego, and that’s gotta be true here, you said yourself I wanted to leave this place, _leave_ the show! That thing couldn’t be me, it _couldn’t!”_

          But even as he went on, Henry’s face doesn’t change at all save for a small frown darkening the corners of his lips. He doesn’t interrupt Sammy, oh no, he doesn’t say anything at all . . . but somehow, that sad silence spoke so much louder than any words possibly could have.

          And already, he felt his hope flagging, even as he waited for Henry to tell him to calm down, to tell him it was fine and that it wasn’t what he thought it was, “Its . . . it’s not me, right? That thing isn’t me . . .”

          Henry closed his eyes, like he was mulling something over in his head, planning out what to say like Sammy had seen him do hundreds of times before when tensions were on the high-strung side of things. And when he finally opened them again, the melancholy there was almost overwhelming, “Sammy . . . down here, nobody’s in there right of mind. Nobody.”

          That was all he said as he turned forward again, gesturing with his axe to keep following. And, after a moment, Sammy does follow, because what else can he do? Even when it felt like his skin was crawling, his thoughts whirling around a faceless creature that believed a demon to be its savior. The dark, musty corridors were already oppressive and threatening before, but now there was an added air of anticipation. Like at any moment, a madman with his voice would spring out from the shadows, an honestly terrifying thought in its own right.

          “W-where-,” Sammy winced and forcefully cleared his throat, _hating_ the way his traitorous voice shook, “Where is it now, then? The other . . . me.”

          Henry shrugged, voice low, “He ran off. I don’t know where.”

          _Not_ encouraging.

          “How?” he mumbled quietly, still unable to come to terms with the fact that some babbling sycophant could _possibly_ have any connection to him. Was supposed to _be_ him, “How does something like that even . . .?”

          “I don’t know,” Henry replied, sounding like he wasn’t even talking to Sammy anymore, “All this happened . . . after I left. I don’t know . . .”

          Sammy stared at him, the words ‘leave’ and ‘Henry’ making him backtrack, “You left? As in . . . you quit?”

          “I did. A long time ago,” Henry replied, but he made no further elaboration on that point. No whys or ands or hows about it.

          Its . . . utterly _bizarre_ to hear. Henry, _quitting_ the studio. Every person back home knew that the man was the most loyal out of any of them, who’d stuck through the highs and lows since the beginning, weathering everything no matter how bad it had gotten at times. And yet, here, in this strange and frankly unnatural mirror world, it was all turned upside down.

          It really didn’t do anything to alleviate his anxiety about a crazy and unhinged duplicate of himself running around in an already dangerous place. God, what he would give to just . . . _wake up._ To have it all really just be a bad dream.

          But it wasn’t.

          “Sorry for bringing it up . . .” the sudden apology has him looking up at Henry, brow furrowing.

          “What?” he asked, genuinely perplexed.

          “I meant to just . . . take your mind off of what was happening,” Henry explained quietly, head bowed, “Not remind you of it.”

          Sammy sighed, too tired to be annoyed, too anxious to _pretend_ to be annoyed, “Does it really matter in the long run? All I have to do is look at a _wall,_ and I remember I’m not home.”

          “Hm, I guess that’s true,” Henry replied, “Still . . .”

          “Look, just . . . forget about it,” Sammy said, frowning a little, “It’s not like it’s your fault I’m here.”

          “Hm . . .”

          Henry stopped walking then, and Sammy could see that they had reached the end of the hall, an old, rickety door blocking their way. Henry waved him back before moving towards it, hefting his axe as he put his other hand on the knob. Nervously, Sammy held his own pipe at the ready, not sure what the hell he was going to do with it, but deciding he’d at least try to aim for the head if something nasty came through.

          With a slow twist, the door clicked open and swung forward with a soft creak. Henry’s body blocked most of the room from view, but with the way the man suddenly inhaled, Sammy was immediately on edge.

          “What, what is it?!” he whispered urgently, fingers tightening around his only weapon.

          Henry didn’t respond, but the hand holding his axe dropped weakly to his side, shoulders stooping. The man glanced back to him, and he looked indecisive, troubled . . .

          “Henry?” Sammy questioned, growing more than a little concerned by whatever was happening, attempting to peer over the man’s shoulders to see what was going on, “Are we in danger or not?!”

          Henry looked away, back into the room, then sighed and let the door swing the rest of the way open, “. . . no, we’re not in any danger. But . . . but try not be afraid, alright?”

          Oh, well, that just made him feel _loads_ better, didn’t it? He was about to ask what the hell he meant by that, when the man suddenly stepped to the side and afforded Sammy a clear view of the room beyond.

          Only to see at least a dozen pairs of glowing yellow eyes staring back.

          A rather undignified noise rose up in the back of his throat, his whole body going rigid even though his knees felt suddenly weak, locked unbendingly between fight-or-flight as he took in the sight of the vaguely humanoid shapes of several ink-creatures standing listlessly in the room beyond. Black residue continually sluiced down their bodies, their frames looking near-skeletal beneath the sludge, the only clear defining features on them the supernatural glow of their eyes. They made absolutely no sound, save for one small creature curled against the wall, the sound of soft sobs trickling from them in an unbroken stream.

          The hand that appeared on his shoulder made him start, whirling to Henry with wide eyes. The man himself hadn’t looked away from the creatures within, his face sad, “They’re not dangerous. I promise. Just stay close to me.”

          And, like a _madman_ , Henry walked into the room.

          Sammy held his breath, half-expecting the creatures within to surge forward with mindless abandon as soon as this intruder entered their domain. But instead, they do nothing except stare.

          Henry looked back at him, “Come on.”

          Sammy gave him a disbelieving look, which elicited only a slight eyeroll and a shake of a head as Henry carried on. But as it was becoming clearer that this Henry wasn’t going to see reason like a sane person, and deciding he didn’t want to be left alone in the hall, Sammy took a deep breath.

          _Just act like you’re in the studio._ He told himself, _Everyone left you alone there._

          The second it took to step over the threshold was the longest second of his life, it felt like, waiting for something to shriek and roar and attack him out of the blue. But . . . it was the same as before. Nothing except those eerie sobs, with empty eyes that only stared at him as he entered.

          Still very nervous but a little emboldened that he hadn’t been immediately assaulted, Sammy hurried to catch up with the other man, doing his level best to keep at least five feet between himself and every other creature in the room. A hard task, since the room itself was fairly small.

          But as they walked to the other side, the questions began to rise in Sammy’s mind.

          Keeping his voice very low, he put it to out there, “So . . . what are these things?”

          “. . . they’re called Lost Ones,” Henry answered, glancing at one of the creatures in question.

          “And . . . what _is_ that?”

          The man seemed . . . reluctant to answer, thumb running over the course wood of his axe handle as he worried at his bottom lip. Then, with a weary sigh, he replied, “They’re . . . they’re what’s left of those who were . . . trapped in the ink. Souls of . . . of people. Humans . . .”

          Sammy’s stomach clenched, and even to his ears, his voice sounded very small, “. . . humans?”

          His gaze wandered to his right, straight into the golden eyes of one of the ‘Lost Ones’, eyes that were filled with measureless unhappiness. It stared back, not saying a word, maybe _unable_ to say a word, but beneath all that ink and unnaturalness, it was a . . . a person? A person, who could have been anyone in the past. Someone who worked here? Who?

          _Is it someone I know?_

          It was just one stray thought, one tiny little thought that graced him only in passing. But the sheer _horror_ it brought hit him like a truck, leaving him feeling winded, short-of-breath, throat suddenly constricting as his thoughts began to spin with horrible hypotheticals.

          There was another him here, somewhere. Another Henry, standing just beside him. Who’s to say it wasn’t possible that _others_ were too!

          And the eyes, staring at him, hopeless, _despairing,_ it was completely possible somewhere in there was a coworker he had _worked_ with before! Someone from the band? The animation department? Could the eyes staring at him now be Wally, or _Norman,_ or, oh god, could they be _Susie?!_

          “O-oh my god . . .” he whispered, covering his mouth with a shaking hand, feeling _sick._

          Something grabbed him by the elbow, and suddenly he was being dragged away, breaking contact with the creature he had been looking at. He stumbled a little, a string of confused and half-hearted protests leaving his lips until they both entered the adjoining room, one that was empty. It was only then Henry let him go, and Sammy moved away from him, but for once, anger is the _last_ thing he was feeling right then. Because all he can think of is a pair of despondent eyes, and _who_ , exactly, lay beyond them.

          “W-who are they?” he asked shakily, voice coming out raspy, thin, a tinny he couldn’t control, “Henry, who _were_ they?!”

          Henry closed his eyes, face turned to the ground like he was too ashamed to look up. He didn’t answer.

          And that . . . that just made him even more upset, “W-what the hell happened here? What the FUCK happened to them?! H-how are many other people are _down here?!”_

          Henry was silent for a very long time, and he thought he wasn’t going to reply again. But when he did finally speak, its with a heaviness to his voice that no man should ever have to carry, “. . . Are you sure you want to know the answers to those?”

          Henry let that question hang. And Sammy realized, with a shiver, that he already _had_ the answer.

          No.

          He _doesn’t._

          _

          The journey progressed in sullen silence after that, Sammy’s mind bogged down by his thoughts and constantly checking over his shoulder, every nerve on edge. Henry didn’t try to break the quiet, and neither did he, although he honestly can’t tell if that’s for the best or not. Small talk was never really his forte, but stewing in his own anxiety-ridden thoughts wasn’t exactly pleasant either. It made every unnatural creak and groan of metal sound so much louder, and it never failed to put him on edge, like some mouse that jumped at every shadow.

          They were fortunate in that they didn’t encounter anything like what they had run from before, or anymore . . . anymore Lost Ones . . . but he still nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice suddenly called softly from a nearby door, “Over here!”

          He had his pipe up at the ready instantly, whirling to the spot it had come from, only for Henry to wave him down as the man stepped forward despite the telling grip on his axe, “Al? Is that you?”

          Beside them, a fairly plain wooden door creaked slowly open, and the familiar-ish shape of Not-Alice stepped through, looking relieved, “Henry. Thank god, I was afraid the demon had caught you!”

          The man gave her a half-shrug, smiling faintly, “Well, he’s failed every time so far.”

          The toon(?) nodded before glancing down either side of the hall, questioning, “Nothing’s followed you, right?”

          “Just our new friend,” Henry replied, nodding Sammy’s way.

          The woman’s eyes ghosted over to him, narrowing a little, “Right. And has our new friend learned not to _yell_ in the studio?”

          The question was very obviously aimed at him, and Sammy experienced an emotion that was so rare for him to feel it honestly caught him off guard a little; guilt. Because his yelling _had_ put them all in danger, he realized now, had drawn all that attention to them and almost gotten them killed.

          So, running a hand on the back of his neck and looking away, he muttered, “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’ve learned.”

          He can imagine the two trading a glance before Not-Alice spoke again, “Well . . . okay. Just make sure you apologize to Tom, too. He’s . . . not very happy with you right now.”

          Sammy grimaced, but didn’t contest her words. He’d probably be pretty pissed too if someone had almost gotten him killed.

          She opened the door just a little further, gesturing, “Come on. Me and Tom found a place we can hole up in for now. Sturdy walls and a sturdier door.”

          “Sounds good,” Henry agreed, looking relieved as he took her up on her offer. Sammy trialed after him, glancing at Not-Alice (Al?) as he passed. She was looking back, her expression not as hard as he would have thought. Rather, she looked more curious than anything, even though she didn’t ask him any questions at all. Her eyes were yellow . . .

          Suddenly feeling very uncomfortable with her stare, Sammy hastily looked away.

          He didn’t want to think about _that_ anymore . . .

          The shelter she spoke of wasn’t far away at all, thank god, a small room tucked away in a dark, lonely corner with a heavy metal door and an even heavier lock. Why was it metal? Who knows, and frankly, he couldn’t care less if it meant momentary safety. ‘Al’ knocked on it with a soft but noticeable rhythm before opening it, ushering them both inside.

          Beyond, the room was small, with stacks of worn crates and old tarps and rough carpets scattered all over the floor. There was a singular table in the back, empty aside from several pipes and a broken cog, as well as a tall, lanky figure of Tom standing over them. The wolf’s head turned immediately as Al shut the door, glancing over Henry and settling on his toon companions for a little longer, ears twitching forward.

          Then the dog’s eyes flicked over to Sammy, and his lips curled into a snarl, an angry growl rising in the back of his throat.

          Furiously, the toon pointed harshly at Sammy, turning to Al with a heated expression on his face. The woman held up her hands, voice calm, “Its alright, Tom. I think Sammy’s learned his lesson.”

          The wolf huffed, clearly not convinced, looking on the verge of throwing Sammy out himself. Wary, he took a step back, ready to put the nearest heavy thing he found between him and the wolf.

          “And-!,” Al interjected before the other toon acted on it, “He has something to say to you. Don’t you, Sammy?”

          Ah . . . that.

          “Um . . .” he met the angry toon’s stare, fighting with his own internal embarrassment as he fiddled with the pipe in his hands, “Look, I . . . I’m . . . _sorry,_ okay?”

          He left it at that, because apologizing was not exactly something Sammy was good at. But if it meant he wouldn’t get kicked out then . . . small sacrifice.

         The wolf cocked an eyebrow, frowning. Beside him, Henry added to Sammy’s case, “He didn’t know what was here, Tom. He didn’t know how dangerous it really was. I know you’re upset, but if he really hadn’t learned his lesson, do you think I’d be here?”

         . . . thanks, Henry . . .

         Tom snorted, crossing his arms, and while it was clear he was still displeased, the fur along his shoulders was starting to flatten. Looking at Sammy once more, the wolf pressed the tips of his thumb and index together, placed them at the corner of his mouth, then dragged them purposefully over his lips, glaring pointedly at him like Sammy didn’t already get the message.

         “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Sammy mumbled, feeling a stirring of annoyance he usually felt when someone treated him like an idiot.

         The wolf huffed, then purposefully turned his back, busying himself with the objects on the table. Al gave a quiet sigh before turning and turning to the door behind her, driving the heavy lock home. As soon as it clicked shut, Sammy felt his muscles relax just a little.

          No sooner had they done that did his exhaustion suddenly sweep through him as if to remind him just how tired he was, his eyelids drooping heavily as his shoulder sagged.

          A light nudge to his shoulder snagged his attention, and he glanced back to see Henry staring at him. The man gestured to one of the carpets on the floor, “You should probably sit down. It’s been . . . a bit of an eventful day.”

          That was putting it _very_ lightly.

          Still, with a grunt, Sammy did just that, not even caring if the thing he was sitting on was probably several decades old, hard, and pretty uncomfortable. He leaned back against one of the crates with a sigh, letting it take his weight as he closed his eyes, the aches and pains in his body feeling far away. Around him, he heard movement and low whispers, Henry and Al, and the clattering of metal bits as Tom did . . . whatever he was doing.

          Fuck, he was tired . . . so tired even the worst of his thoughts were drifting away . . .

          . . .

          Its an indeterminable amount of time later when a nudge to his shoulder startled him awake, not even realizing he had fallen asleep in the first place. He looked around in alarm, only to find Henry crouching next to him, a can of . . . something in his hand. Behind him, he could see Al and Tom sitting together across the room, the woman talking while the wolf listened, even though his eyes were firmly fixed on the door.

          “Hey, it’s just me,” the man said softly, “Thought you might be hungry, and there happened to be a few cans in here.”

          He held said can out to him and Sammy wrinkled his nose at the contents he saw within, “Is that . . . _bacon soup?”_

          Henry shrugged, “Yeah . . . its all that’s really down here.”

          Sammy frowned at it, making it no subtle thing his distaste for it. He had _never_ liked this stuff, finding its consistency gross whether warm or cold, horribly over salted and with bits of ‘bacon’ meat as tough as old leather.

          But his hollow stomach, even after all it had been through, now had that aching pang associated with hunger rolling through it, and the smell of the soup, though it was its typical burnt bacon smell, teased at it.

          “Is there _really_ nothing else?” he asked pleadingly, looking at the man.

           Henry grimaced, “Yeah.”

          Sammy gave the can a last, loathsome stare before grabbing it, resigning himself to his fate . . . only to abruptly realize he had no utensil to eat it with.

          Henry had apparently read the look on his face, “Sorry. No spoons.”

          He stared at the man, “So I’m just . . . supposed to drink it out of the can.”

          “Yep.”

          Sammy gave the man a hard stare before sighing, glaring down at the can in his hands. He gave it a swirl, grimacing when he saw the chunks floating in it. With a shake of his head, he held his nose, closed his eyes, and took a swig.

          Uck, it was _just_ as bad as he remembered!

          Grimacing, he forced himself to swallow, coughing a little as it went down, “Ugh . . . how do you eat this stuff so regularly?”

          “If it makes you feel better, I’d rather eat literally anything else by this point,” Henry said, not a hint of a joke in his voice.

          Sammy huffed, “Finally admit how disgusting this stuff is?”

          “Well, it loses its charm after the first fifty cans or so,” Henry said, grousing a little.

          Sammy rolled his eyes a little before looking at the soup in his hand, debating whether or not to try for another ‘drink’, when Henry suddenly sat next to him, knocking back the soup he had in his own hands, “Uh, yes? Did you need something?”

          “I . . . just wanted to ask how you were holding up,” Henry said, “You know . . .”

          Sammy leaned back against the crate, eyes falling to the floor, frowning hard, “How the hell do you think? I’m in another world where the studio I work at is filled with _monsters,_ I’ve been almost killed _twice,_ and I have no idea how to get home! I’m doing just fucking _peachy.”_

          The other man’s eyes were sympathetic, “Yeah, I guess it is a dumb question when you phrase it like that.”

          “Yeah, it really is,” Sammy grumbled.

          “. . . well, at least we’re safe enough for now,” Henry said, “And after everyone’s rested, we can start planning out what to do.”

          “Are you meaning to tell me that you’ve been walking around this entire time without a plan?” Sammy said, staring at him in disbelief.

          “We _did_ have a plan. Still do, I guess, but . . . it didn’t exactly count for you,” Henry told him, setting his can on the ground, “Believe it or not, but you’re just as much of a surprise to us as we are to you.”

          Sammy stared a little longer. Then, “Alright, touché.”

          With a wince, Sammy rolled one of his shoulders back, feeling it give a relieving pop, when he noticed a pair of golden eyes staring at him from across the room. Al was watching him, her gaze hawkish in intensity, and he could see a burning curiosity in her eyes the kind of which he’d seen in newbie hires who had just learned their studio’s little secret.

          “What?” he asked her, eyebrow lifting.

          Al straightened a little, looking slightly embarrassed about having been caught before idly beginning to toy with the tool belt around her waist, “I’m sorry, I just . . . I was just curious about you.”

          Sammy blinked. That wasn’t exactly a line he was unfamiliar with, but anyone who had ever been ‘curious’ about him quickly had it curbed when they were only met with dry and oftentimes rude remarks. Still . . . a tiny part of himself wondered what exactly this toon here would find curious about him, “About what?”

          “Just . . .” Al glanced at Henry almost uncertainly before shifting it back, “Just that, you’re from someplace completely different from this one. A different studio . . . a different world. What’s not to be curious about?”

          Ah. Well, that was indeed the obvious answer, wasn’t it?

          “I guess,” Sammy finally said, ignoring the suspicious glare Tom gave him.

          “Could you tell us about it?”

          Sammy sat up a little straighter, surprised, “Huh?”

          Al continued, leaning forward enthusiastically, “Could you tell us about your studio? What is it like? Are there other people there? Can you go outside? I _really_ . . . really want to know.”

          Normally, Sammy would say something along the lines of ‘get lost’ to an interview like that . . . but while this toon is not the Alice who knew, there was still just enough in her that the sudden hopeful sparkle in her eyes was very hard to say ‘no’ to and genuinely mean it. Quietly, he glanced around at the other two occupants in the room. Tom was watching the door again, but Sammy could see one of his ears was swiveled in his direction, perhaps more interested than he let on, and Henry . . . well, he was watching the door too, the angle making it hard to see his face.

          Running a hand through his hair, he huffed a semi-annoyed sigh before grumbling, “Alright. Not like I have anything else to do . . .”

          Al scooted forward on the crate she was sitting on even more, listening intently, all her focus on him. And, though he started a little stiltedly (he was never the story-telling type), the more he went on about his occupation, the easier it became to talk about it. He started with his own job, then branched out to the departments, the people, the _bullshit_ of some of those people, so on and so forth. Al never interrupted him either, absorbing everything like some vaguely human-shaped sponge, and at some point, even _Tom_ had begun to switch his attention between him and the door.

          It reached a head when he told them about the toons, Al’s mouth dropping open completely in shock, “The Ink Demon’s _alive_ in our world?! That’s dangerous, it could kill somebody!”

          Sammy waved her down, “Hey, hey, hey, he might be an obnoxious little ink blot, but . . . he’s not a killer. Not like . . . whatever the fuck that thing out there is.”

          His hand unconsciously rose to his neck, massaging the still-bruised flesh there, feeling that familiar shiver travel down his spine again.

          “Are you _sure?”_ Al pressed, alarm still gleaming bright in her golden eyes.

          He narrowed his eyes at her, “Yes, I’m _sure._ He’s worked there for _thirty years_ , I think something would have happened by now if he was dangerous!”

          “. . . he _works_ there?”

          Sammy turned his head to the right, looking at Henry with quiet surprise. It was the first time the man had said _anything_ since he’d started talking, and the look on his face was that of a child who’d just been told Santa Claus was actually the neighbor next door.

          Not that it was so surprising that they would be . . . taken aback by that.

          “Yeah, he works there. All the toons do,” Sammy explained, “When Joey first summoned him, he . . . kinda got it wrong, but he wasn’t dangerous. In fact, Bendy was pretty pissed off with Joey for neglecting the show in the time he’d been wasting fiddling around with satanic magic. _So_ pissed he actually appointed himself the head of the animation department just to get things back on track.”

          Henry looked _gob smacked_ by this, “He . . . he _made_ himself the _head_ of the animation department. _Bendy._ ”

          Sammy nodded, “Mhm. I mean, Joey’s still technically the boss, but the little ‘dancing demon’ is really the one making sure everyone does what they’re supposed to. It was actually . . . sort of nice at first. We actually got things done on _time.”_

          Then he frowned, hunching in with crossed arms and an angry scowl, “And then he started the _pranks . . .”_

          It was dead silent at first, Al staring in shocked wonder, Tom . . . well, not speaking like normal(?), but not growling either, ears standing straight up, and Henry sitting stock-still and openmouthed beside him. You’d think he had said something _obscene_ , to elicit these sorts of reactions.

          And then, out of the blue . . . Henry _snorted._

          Everybody’s gaze snapped to him, but nobody looked more surprised than Henry himself, who had slapped a hand over his mouth, staring around in shock . . . and just a little bit of wonder. And he must still be thinking about what Sammy had just said, because the man’s shoulders started to shake, his eyes crinkling the way the way Sammy had seen them do before when he was on the verge of completely losing it, the edges of a smile peeking out behind his hand as barely restrained chortles slipped between his fingers.

          Al and Tom look utterly bewildered by it, staring at Henry openly, wide-eyed. The whole picture, two clueless toons and an animator who was barely keeping it together, was . . . amusing.

          And by god, he _needed_ amusing.

          So, with an almost impish smirk, he carried on, “I hear he gets into fights with the P.R department a lot. Never seem to agree on what the promotional material should be, especially after Joey made him wear a sailor suit and a lifesaver for a summer special.”

          The chuckling rose up into full-on guffaw before Henry could quell it completely, coughing as he fought to stymie his own laughter.

          “Aaand he wear’s the stupidest disguises when he goes out. Trench coat and gag glasses. Fake nose, mustache and everything, and he thinks its _clever.”_

          Henry’s other hand went up to his mouth now, as if the double reinforcement would somehow stop what was coming. By now, Al’s face had softened entirely, pressing her fingers to her lips as a smile teased its way out, while Tom settled for simply watching in bemused wonder.

          Sammy’s smirk grew just a little more, “Oh, I almost forgot! He likes to think he’s over it, but most everybody knows for a fact that he still likes to ride around on Boris’ shoulders because it helps him feel tall. And he haaates when you call him out on it.”

           Henry couldn’t hold it back anymore. Throwing his head back, the man laughed uproariously, so hard honest-to god tears started forming in his eyes, wrapping one arm around his stomach while he clapped the other against his head. Sammy found his own lips pulling just a _little_ bit higher, a _little_ more genuinely, and maybe the fact that he doesn’t think he’s seen this Henry crack even one real smile before is making the effect stronger. But then, no matter where, Henry’s laughter has always been what one would call ‘infectious’. Maybe that was just true even in another world.

          Either way . . . it made him feel a little less worse.

          “Th-that-!” Henry tried to say, nearly losing it again as he rocked back against the crate, “That is . . . so _ridiculous!”_

          Sammy inclined his head to him, finger-quoting, “Trust me, that’s just the tip of the iceberg at ‘Hell’s Studio’.”

          “Hell’s Studio, huh?” Henry echoed, “Got a name for it and everything?”

          “Well, I don’t know who coined it, but its stuck,” Sammy replied, shrugging but feeling strangely satisfied.

          “Ha . . .” Henry leaned back, laughter dying down but his smile standing firm, looking more at ease than Sammy has ever seen him, “Man . . . I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in ages . . .”

          “It suits you,” Al said with a smile, “And . . . your ‘Hell’s Studio’, Sammy . . .  well, it sounds wonderful.”

          Tom grunted, and Sammy wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be discouraging or not.

          “Hm, I’d tell you to see it first before you say that,” Sammy said.

          “I’d like to, I think,” was her reply, and he can tell she meant it, “I really would.”

          The silence after that is a little more sobering, until the toon woman leaned forward again, a little sheepish but excited, “Can . . . I hear more about your Alice? I’m curious.”

          Sammy leaned back against the crate behind him, deciding to indulge her. And, in a strange, roundabout way, indulge himself, because while talking about his home was a little melancholic . . . it was also a little good.

          And for a while, maybe just for him, maybe for all of them, it made the monsters and the sad eyes of the Lost Ones seem far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But it doesn't always have to be bad in the dark places, does it?

**Author's Note:**

> Is it just a bad dream? 
> 
> Who knows. :)
> 
> (I also one hundred percent think that if something like this did happen, it would one hundred percent be an accident and it would one hundred percent be Joey's fault)


End file.
